10th March, 2024
By Victor Okoye
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has named two new players in the Super Eagles squad ahead of two scheduled friendly matches in March.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that England-based defender Gabriel Osho and Tanzania-based Benjamin Tianimu are teaming up with the group for the first time.
Nigeria will take on Ghana’s Black Stars and Les Aigles of Mali in two top-grade friendly matches in the Moroccan city of Marrakech later this month.
A statement by Ademola Olajire, NFF’s Director of Communications said both matches have been put together by NFF’s FIFA Match Agent, Jairo Pachon of Eurodata Sport.
The clash with Ghana’s Black Stars, which comes up on March 22, is bound to resurrect vintage memories of a 73-year rivalry involving the West African giants, dating back to October 1951 when Nigeria walloped then Gold Coast 5-0 in a Jalco Cup encounter in Lagos.
Most recently, the two teams clashed in March 2022 in a two-legged play-off for a place at that year’s FIFA World Cup finals in Qatar, with the Black Stars edging the fixture on the away-goal rule after a 1-1 aggregate.
Nigeria and Mali, both teams incidentally nicknamed ‘Eagles’, last clashed in a friendly match in Rouen, France in the summer of 2016, an encounter which ended goalless.
The Malian Eagles had, three years earlier, lost 1-4 to eventual winners, Super Eagles in Durban in the semi-finals of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations.
Nigeria and Ghana will resume their rivalry at the Grand Stade de Marrakech from 4 p.m. Morocco time on March 22.
The encounter between Nigeria and Mali will commence at the same venue as from 9 p.m. on March 26.
Olajire said that Nigeria retained the bulk of the squad that finished as runners-up at the 34th Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d’Ivoire.