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Red Hot Okoronkwo Can Complement Osimhen In Super Eagles’ Attack

By Daily Sports on October 15, 2019

Hearts off to the young Super Eagles team that went ‘toe to toe’ with ‘Almighty Brazil’ in Sunday’s international friendly in Singapore.

Eagles Technical Adviser Gernot Rohr had said prior to the game that the match would serve as a gauge of how far the Super Eagles have progressed since the last AFCON where they finished 3rd in Egypt. Playing out a tactically thrilling 1-1 draw against the world’s most respected football nation till date and a side filled up to the brim with top players of international football shows that the Eagles have, to put it most conservatively, improved a lot.

Franco-German Rohr has roared life into the Eagles since he took charge a couple of years ago, instilling a culture of meritocracy into the selection process of players for the senior national team and, equally impressively, giving more youthful players a chance shine as against the past culture of featuring geriatric players who make watching the Super Eagles no more than a draining experience.

The Eagles that turned up against Brazil, though the South Americans dominated the tie for most parts, looked largely aware of their tactical roles, had the legs to switch gear from defence to attack and then back to defence again, and carried with them a potent attacking threat with Lille of France’s Victor Osimhen and Villareal ace Samuel Chukwueze giving the Brazilians so much to chew.

It sounds good for pride sake for Nigerians to say, “Brazil forced us to a draw, or BEGGED for a draw” after the Selecao equalised in the second half to cancel out Joe Aribo’s brilliant opener for Nigeria.

All the positions in the Super Eagles squad are manned by reliable young heads and that’s reassuring.

If there are any genuine question marks it perhaps has to be about the depth of the squad should some of those on parade against Brazil become unavailable.

When Rohr removed Osimhen upfront and introduced Paul Onwuachu of Belgian side Genk, the Nigerian attack became weaker as languid Onuachu struggled to match the effectiveness of Osimhen.

Onuachu is a hardworking guy but question marks abound as to whether he has the requisite skills and attacking movements to be a Super Eagles regular.

One player who would be itching to be in the reckoning for a Super Eagles shirt and to reunite with his Under-17 Golden Eaglets teammates of the 2015 class is Orji Okoronkwo, the Nigerian striker who is currently in super form for MLS side Montreal impact where he just won the MVP award as that club’s best player of 2019.

Okoronkwo is with Impacts in loan from Bologna of the Italian Seria A.

Per www.footballive.ng, Okoronkwo “scored eight times in 28 league appearances for the Club last season to clinched the award.

Okonkwo was on target in Montreal Impact 3-0 over New York RedBull in last Thursday’s MLS clash.

“Montreal are 9th on the Eastern Conference log with 41 points from 34 matches.”

Okoronkwo’s current rich vein of form is partly a fulfilment of the promise the very talented striker has always shown.

He formed a devastating partnership with Osimhen and Chukwueze to lift the Under-17 World Cup for Nigeria in 2015 in Chile and reuniting with them in the Under-23 Olympics Eagles has been a success so far. Now these 3 players could form the fulcrum of the Super Eagles attack going forward and that would represent a satisfactory national team trajectory for the lads and the much maligned Nigerian national team football administration.

One youth coach of Okoronkwo, Chinedu Uba of Rockers FC in Benin City, is convinced that the lad has what it takes to achieve more in football. “Orji has always been hard working and of course there’s more to come from him,” he says.