IK Sirius of Sweden striker, Henry Offia has become the latest lad to talk about in the Nigerian youth national team, Flying Eagles, following his opening goal in Wednesday’s 3-1 win against the U19 team of German lower division club, VFR Aalen.
With two goals in his first couple of matches for the Flying Eagles, having also scored in Sunday’s 2-1 loss to Saudi Arabia, Offia has set himself up for a spot in Paul Aigbogun’s final squad list for the FIFA U-20 World Cup.
Nigeria’s other goals in Wednesday’s hastily rearranged build-up game were netted by Bournemouth of England midfielder, Nnamdi Ofoborh and BK Rosenborg of Norway defender, Igoh Ogbu, who both equally showed highly promising form in the encounter.
Offia, though, appears ahead of the lot, after he made it two goals in two matches, by opening the scoring with an assist from Manchester City whiz-kid, Tom Dele-Bashiru in the first half.
After the interval, Ofoborh dribbled past two Aalen players to make it 2-1 and Ogbu ended it at 3-1 from a goalmouth melee from a corner, as the foreing-based lads showed the difference they can make for Aigbogun.
However, megasportsarena.com can report that Everton’s Korede Adedoyin, Watford’s Jayden Bennetts, Fisayo Dele-Bashiru from Manchester City and Daniel Toma from West Ham United were not listed for the game.
It marked the first victory for Aigbogun’s team in their pre-competition build-up programme, as they were first held to a 3-3 draw by SC Freiburg of Germany and lost 2-1 to Saudi Arabia’s under-20 squad last weekend.
Wednesday’s fixture was initially meant to be against another German club, SpVgg Greuther Furth but they pulled out at short notice, just as the original choice, TSG Hopffenheim earlier did, leaving Aigbogun to hastily arrange another option against Aalen.
All the players in camp traveled to Stuttgart for the match, but some were left out of the squad list thsat battled the German 3. Liga club, against who the biggest shining light for Nigeria was Offia.
Also looking good on the evening was Ofoborh, who went straight into the starting 11 just two days after he joined the Flying Eagles at their camp in Bad Gögging, Germany.
Offia and Ofoborh will now hope to extend their heroics into Tuesday, May 14, when the Flying Eagles play their fourth build-up game against Red Bull Salzburg of Austria, while their last tie will be versus RB Leipzig of Germany on Friday, May 17.
The NFF 🇳🇬