Enyimba of Aba goalkeeper, John Noble appears set to start for the Super Eagles in Saturday’s international friendly, following the inability of Heartland of Owerri’s Ikechukwu Ezenwa to make the trip to United States of America, megasportsarena.com reports.
Ezenwa was ruled out of the Eagles B-squad’s flight to USAS for the game, which will hold this Saturday at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, following his failure to recover from a nagging ankle injury, thereby leaving the stage open for Noble.
Since the start of this year, Noble has gained the lone slot of players from Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) that had hitherto been reserved for Ezenwa, and he now looks set to take it a step further by starting in the upcoming high-prestige game.
Noble apparently got the backing of former Eagles’ captain and head coach, Augustine Eguavoen, who will take charge of the squad in the absence of Gernot Rohr and his assistant, Joseph Yobo, as the gaffer said he can count on the lads available to him to make an impact on Saturday.
Ezenwa’s injury leaves Eguavoen with Noble and Lobi Stars of Makurdi rookie, Stanley Nwabali to contend for the starter’s role in Saturday’s game, but the edge surely belongs to The Peoples’ Elephant’s fast-growing shot-stopper, based on his recent invitations to the first team, especially for their recent friendlies against Cameroon in Vienna, Austria.
The former defender, who was fondly called ‘Cerezo’ during his playing days, declared that the one-week training camp of the home-based players was helpful for the technical team and the players, as he disclosed that they all familiarised themselves with expectations from national team camping.
‘Egu’ submitted: “It has not been easy; it’s been very tough. It’s not been so easy with the player selection, they should give us a lot of commendation because selecting 22 players out of a league of over 800 players is not so easy and this is a league that is on, and we were not able to see all of them.
“There have been a lot of improvements, I’m not saying there were down there before because they’re up there, it is just to let them know how we want to play and how to figure out what position should be best for the players.
“It’s not been so easy, so it’s just something we just accept, and you know it is not my primary role, I just decided to take it because there is no coach on ground so let’s try to see how we can encourage ourselves.
“We’re giving an opportunity to these kids now, for them to showcase themselves and hopefully, they will go out there and put up a good performance. Two goalkeepers, Stanly Nwabili and John Noble, will be the ones for the trip.”
