Okoye told me he would be available -Eguavoen

SUPER Eagles head coach, Austin Eguavoen has said that first choice goalkeeper assured him he would be available for the World Cup playoff against Ghana the last time they both spoke.

A section of Nigerian fans were on the social media to accuse the goalkeeper of dodging responsibility following the verbal assault he suffered in his role in the ouster of the Super Eagles at the 2021 Afcon where Tunis edged Nigeria out in the second round.

Okoye has excused himself from the duel with Ghana citing illness.

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Reacting, 56-year-old Eguavoen said of Sparta Rotterdam goalkeeper Maduka Okoye: “I got a message from Maduka Okoye, that he is going to come but we have a backup in John Noble who is going join us. If Maduka recovers and joins us there is no problem. but we have Noble as a backup,” he concluded.

The Nigeria Football Federation confirmed on Tuesday that the Sparta Rotterdam goalkeeper will be missing when Augustine Eguavoen’s men square up against the Black Stars in Kumasi on Friday.

As a result, Enyimba goalkeeper John Noble has been called up to join Francis Uzoho and Daniel Akpeyi in the team’s camp.

On the team, Eguavoen says he is satisfied with the Super Eagles’ performance in training on Tuesday evening.

“I am very satisfied, you can see that the boys are ready to go,” he told the media.

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“The good thing is that they are in season, they are in form and their confidence is very high. No injury worries and I am very satisfied with what we saw in our first training session, one hour, 15 minutes.

“Hopefully, we’ll have two more training sessions before the game, anything more than that will be suicidal. It is more of tactical talks than physicality now. We are ready to go.”