Former Super Eagles’ fringe striker, Peter Ijeh has revealed that his daughters gained inspiration to take up professional football from watching his videos as well as turning up live to see him in training and matches.
Speaking against the backdrop of the invitation of both lasses, Josephine and Evelyn, to the Nigerian female national team, Super Falcons, Ijeh, who grew up Ajegunle area of Lagos but made his biggest marks I Sweden, added that his daughters even want to be like him.
Megasportsarena.com reports that Ijeh admitted he was emotionally uplifted seeing both lasses named in the Falcons’ list on Thursday and disclosed that are already planning on proving their mettle during the team’s eight-day training camp in Austria.
Josephine Ijeh, who was born in 2003, is a defender with the female team of BK Hacken in the Damallsvenskan league, where 19-year-old Evelyn also features, but she is provisionally cap-tied to Sweden after playing competitive matches for their under-17 and under-19 national teams.
Evelyn is already following her dad’s style, as she loves wearing headbands and looks to keep alive the ‘Ijeh Name,’ which first gained ground when he became one of the pioneering Nigerian footballers to play in Scandinavia.
Ijeh disclosed further that he always encourages his daughters to aim for the best and try to make a better impact than he did in his heyday and he told allnigeriasoccer.com: “They watch my video clips, they come to the team I train, they sit around.
“That’s how they fell in love with what I’m doing. At the end of the day they want to be like me. Both of them – Evelyn and Josephine – are my daughters. They will be in Austria and see how it is.
“Of course they are happy to play for Nigeria that’s why they accepted the invitation. Children of nowadays they are inquisitive to know where the parents really, really come from even if they have visited Nigeria.
“Getting invited is a welcome development for them at least to see how the well talked about Nigeria is. They have been to Nigeria two or three times in the past, they love the mentality there, different from what they see here.”
