The Nigeria U20 team are having a crisis in defence ahead of their U20 Africa Cup of Nations quarter final game against Uganda , OGN can exclusively reveal.
Nigeria will tomorrow tackle the junior Cranes for a spot in the semi final of the tournament, which also means qualification for the U20 World Cup which will take place in Indonesia later in the year.
We exclusively gathered that the team is presently battling to have Benjamin Fredrick fit for the game as he is yet to fully recover from a knock he received in their last group game against Mozambique.
Frederick who has been one of the standout performers in the Nigerian team didn’t train with the rest of the squad as he keeps complaining of pains around where he suffered the knock. His feared absence coincides with the unavailability of his regular partner Daniel Bameyi who is suspended after picking two yellow cards in the group games.
It means goalkeeper Chijioke Anigboso will wear the captain armband with Abel Ogwuche set for his first start of the tournament after two appearances as a substitute. Solomon Agbalaka is the obvious choice to be drafted to the center back position if Benjamin is ruled out of the game.
There are also doubt over the availability of team’s mercurial midfielder Daniel Daga who went off Injured in their first group game against Senegal. He hasn’t trained since then and looks very likely to miss the game against Uganda as well.
Damian Waziri .
