For the first time, Victor Osimhen will have to face kinsmen, Kelechi Iheanacho and Wilfred Ndidi, as Leicester City host Napoli tonight in the Europa League at the King Power Stadium.
Interestingly, the trio were on duty for Nigeria when the Super Eagles pipped the Lone Star of Liberia 2-0 in Lagos early this month in a 2022 World Cup qualifier, but tonight, they have to face the business of giving their various clubs cause to smile at the end of the encounter.
Osimhen was named by manager, Luciano Spalletti, among the squad to face the Foxes amid the fear of being asked to go on quarantine on entering the United Kingdom.
Ahead of the showdown, former Sunderland manager, Paolo Di Canio, has rated Osimhen as a difficult opponent for the Foxes’ defence.
“Vestergaard, who has just arrived from Southampton, is tall and wiry, but with someone like Osimhen, if the Nigerian plays, he will have a hard time.” Di Canio told II Martino as per GFNI.
“Then there is the Turkish defender [Caglar Soyuncu] who had to go to City but then stayed, and he has lost his head. Soyuncu also did damage to Turkey.”
Meanwhile, Osimhen who is yet to score for the Parthenopeans this season has been cleared alongside two of his teammates, David Ospina and Amir Rrahmani to play the match despite travelling to the UK’s red list countries in the last 10 days.
Osimhen, 2015 FIFA U17 World Cup winner featured for Nigeria in the 2-1 win over Cape Verde in Mindelo in a 2022 World Cup qualifier last Tuesday and even scored one of the goals.
The doubt over Osimhen’s exclusion from the trip to Leicester was that Cape Verde is one of the countries on the UK’s coronavirus red list; and the government rules state ‘anyone that has been to a red list country and travelling to the UK must quarantine for ten days or must have stayed ten days in a country on the amber or green list.
According to CalcioNapoli24, UEFA has reached an agreement with the UK to allow the players to enter the country without the need to quarantine, which gives respite to the former Lille of France striker, Osimhen, who has just spent eight days after the trip to Cape Verde before the Europa clash