Racing Genk of Belgium striker, Cyriel Dessers is taking his exclusion from the upper Eagles’ squad to battle Sierra Leone this Friday with equanimity, a the former Heracles Almelo of Holland sensation insists he does not have any regrets for choosing Nigeria instead of Belgium, megasportsarena.com reports.
Indeed, Dessers caused a major stir last year, who he decided against player for his father’s country and opted for his mother’s nation instead, after which he went on to get his debut in an international friendly against Tunisia in Austria.
However, with his goals yet to rain at Genk, which he joined from Heracles in the summer, Dessers has not been considered in form for the Eagles’ double cracker against Sierra Leone in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifies, thereby raising speculation that he could have been surplus to requirements.
With Victor Osimhen, Paul Ebere Onuachu and Kelechi Iheanacho all considered ahead of him in the Eagles’ perking order of strikers, it would appear that Dessers has no place in the Nigerian squad, but the fair-skinned striker, who was joint-top goals scorer last season in the Dutch Eredivisie stressed that playing for Nigeria is a dream come true for him.
While his international future is still wide open, as his Eagles’ debut came only in a friendly, Dessers affirmed that he would rather represent Nigeria even if he were to be handed a call-up by Belgium, who were actually the first county to make a move for his services.
That came when Royal Belgian Football Association gave him a call-up for an U21 EURO qualifier against Moldova in March 2015 but he did not play that game, thereby paving the way for him to be available for the Eagles without requiring a change of nationality through FIFA.
He has now gone on to tell ESPN’s Colin Udoh that he would still pick Nigeria even if Belgium called him up, because he would love to obey his mother’s wish, which is for him to line out for him to commit his international future to the country of her birth.
Dessers, who contributed 42 goals in 40 appearances for NAC Breda of Holland in the Dutch Keuken Kampioen Divisie in the 2016/17 season, added: “If I ask my mom to help me, she’ll pick Nigeria for sure.
“If I ask my dad? Absolutely he’s one of the biggest fans, he ordered the new jersey also, together with my brothers, so they love it. At first I must admit it’s something that I dreamt of but I never could believe I would achieve this.
“For example ten years ago I was playing in the U19 in the fourth division in Belgium and I was going to college, I was going to study and it wasn’t even in my mind to become a professional football player.
“I hoped for it but I would never expect, first I became a professional football player and couple of years later, six years later, I’m in the national team of a country with more than 200 million people. For me that’s unreal for sure.
“The first time it started was four years ago when I was in second division in Holland and some reports came that there’s a Nigerian striker who’s scoring a lot of goals and at that moment I was like that it’s true but then the first question came would you choose Nigeria if they come?
“I said if they come for sure but I don’t think they’ll come because I’m playing in the second league in Holland but when you see how I developed the last years, I played European football and I was top scorer of Eredivisie then you feel it’s coming closer.”
