When the list of players called up to the senior national team of Nigeria by coach Jose Peseiro for the AFCON qualifiers game against Sierra Leone was made public, three names were conspicuously missing from the list of players.
The trio of Gift Orban of Belgium side Gent, Victor Boniface of Union Saint-Gilloise another Belgium team and that of Terem Moffi who plays Ligue 1 were all not listed in the 23 man squad, much to the surprise of a lot of people.
Last season, they combined for a total of 63 goals with Orban hitting 20 for Gent, the team he joined in January, Boniface had 22 goals while Moffi ended the season with a combined total of 21 goals both of Lorient and Nice, the team he joined in January.
Peseiro was left handicapped by the new policy of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) which is that only twenty foreign based players should be called up for any game with the remaining coming from the local scene.
The idea was to save cost due to the rising cost of air tickets but with the players on holiday and most of them in Nigeria, the coach went ahead to list more than the required number of foreign based players and submitted to the NFF explaining why.
His explanation fell on deaf ears and he was asked to stick to the instruction of just twenty foreign based players leaving him with no option but to take out the trio of Orban, Boniface and Moffi.
While the duo of Boniface and Orban were sacrificed for other senior players considering the fact that a win is needed badly by the team and experience will be crucial, Moffi was dropped in order to create space for Awoniyi who ended the season on a high for Nottingham Forest.
Osas Mahawi
