Alex Iwobi believes Nigerians are right to be upset that the Super Eagles are not part of the 2017 Africa Nations Cup which kicked off in Gabon on Saturday.
Iwobi told The Independent that there was no excuse for the failure judging by the immense talent of players and passion of the fans for football.
“They want us to win and compete at all levels but if we don’t do that they are not happy. We can’t make it to the Nations Cup and that is costly,” said the Arsenal forward who scored two deflected goals in his team’s 4-0 win over home side Swansea yesterday.
Iwobi further explained that the AFCON failure has turned the Super Eagles into a hungry team.
“We are ruthless in our matches for Russia 2018 World Cup because we want to be there and we don’t want anybody to stop us”
Eagles are currently still in the hunt for Russia, having won the first two games of the final stage of qualification against Zambia 2-1, and Algeria 3-1. They have four more games, between August and October, to hold onto their place.
Iwobi also says he will never forget his competitive debut for Nigeria. In March last year, Iwobi came on in the second half against Egypt, at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium in Kaduna. It was a world away from the Emirates Stadium, in every sense.
“To start with, we played in a stadium that holds 30,000 people, and there were 60,000 there.
“I didn’t understand how. People were standing on the floodlights, on the scoreboard. I was just thinking, ‘what, this isn’t even safe.” But people there will do anything to watch the match. Sometimes in a Premier League game the fans are a bit quiet, but in Nigeria you hear trumpets, everything. The atmosphere is so different compared to England.”
In that game they conceded a last-minute equaliser to Mohamed Salah.
Nigeria is one of the world’s great football nations. There are only six countries with a bigger population and of those only Brazil can beat Nigeria for football enthusiasm, history and talent. And yet despite this, Nigeria are one of the great underachievers of recent years.
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