Heartland of Owerri goalkeeper, Ikechukwu Ezenwa has received a very deeply emotional message of consolation from Super Eagles’ stand-in coach, Augustine Eguavoen, following the shot-stopper’s inability to make the trip with the squad to United States of America.
Megasportsarena.com reports that Ezenwa, who had initially been tipped to captain the Eagles’ B-squad for this Saturday’s international friendly against Mexico, was ruled out of the trip due to a swollen ankle that he appeared to have copped in training.
Although Ezenwa had been labored with fitness issues at his club since March, the former Enyimba of Aba and Katsina United netminder declared on arrival at the Eagles’ camp in Abuja that he had overcome his recent bouts with injury and affirmed that he was ready to play himself back into contention in the national team.
However, that charge was dented when he copped an ankle complaint last weekend and he ended up missing the next line of training sessions, which Eguavoen has now declared ruled the keeper out of contention for the trip to God’s Own Country for Saturday’s match against El Tri.
The former Eagles’ head coach, who is now the substantive technical director of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), declared just before the team travelled out of the country early Wednesday that Ezenwa failed to recover after undergoing several tests to determine the extent of injury, even after it was gathered that he had not suffered a fracture.
Ironically, Wednesday made it exactly two years after Ezenwa last featured for the Eagles, when he started their last group match of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations against Madagascar, but could not save the Nigerian team from suffering a shock defeat.
Ezinwa’s hope of getting a return to relevance in the national team through a most likely starting spot against Mexico have now been dashed, thereby leaving new kid on the block, John Noble of Enyimba as the next probably number one for the game at LA Coliseum.
He has, however, gained soothing words of consolation from Eguavoen, who admitted that the injury is freak in nature, but consoled the keeper to remain focused, keep working hard and make sure he keeps himself in topo shape for another opportunity in future.
Eguavoen retorted: “It’s a bit funny, he came no problem at all and then we had a training session he complained about his ankle, and the medical team managed him well.
“The next day he came out and that same evening he said he couldn’t even walk, his leg was swollen, up till yesterday evening we were trying to see how far we can go.
“They have taken him to the hospital for a scan and the good news is that there is no fracture, it’s just a ligament, one of the tissues there has been touched.
“The swelling is actually there, he has not trained for the past two days now. He’s out, we’ll speak to him later in the day.
“He should just take it in good faith, another opportunity will also present itself again so he’s out of the trip.”
