Germany’s latest set of Nigerian-born players in the under-23 national team, Felix Uduokhai and Jordan Torunarigha have set their sigh on next Saturday, July 17 to line out with the squad in an international friendly.
Megasportsarena.com reports that this comes after they were both named into the German team for the upcoming Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, ahead of which they will use the July 17 game to further harness their readiness.
The German squad will rely heavily on Uduokhai, a defender with FC Augsburg, and Hertha BSC center-back Torunarigha, though they faced similar debilitating fortunes on personal levels last season in the Bundesliga.
Indeed, many pundits posited that Uduokhai making the list came as a surprise, because he has not played in over two months due to an ankle tendon injury, while Torunarigha struggled for game time and got only 14 appearances in all competitions due to several fitness issues.
However, Germany’s under 23 team’s coach and ex-international, Stefan Kuntz selected both Uduokhai and Torunarigha plus 17 other players in the hunt for gold medal glory in Japan, ahead of which they will open camp this weekend in Wakayama.
That would give then about five days to prepare for the international friendly against Honduras on July 17, following which they start Olympics action on July 22 against Brazil, then face Saudi Arabia and Ivory Coast in their remaining Group D fixtures.
This comes less than a year after Uduokhai popped into the radar of a possible invitation to the Super Eagles and he responded by talking at length about his Nigerian heritage, but he now appears inching closer to an international future with Deutschland.
Born to a German mother and Nigerian father on the 9th of September 1997 in Annaberg-Buchholz, a town in Saxony near the Czech border, Uduokhai is eligible for the Eagles and Die Maanschaft, to which he is the fourth Augsburg player in history to earn an invitation.
Uduokhai told omasports in September 2020: “I’ve never been to a game but I’ve been in a stadium in Nigeria once. It was on old stadium and it was a long time ago but I can remember it.
“When I was there, I was 11 so it was a long time ago. Of course, at that age it’s something you can’t believe because you’ve never seen those areas before in your life and it’s so different to your life here.
“It’s another world. It was fantastic to see all my family, my aunt, my uncles, cousins and all my family. I really want to go there next time.
“I don’t really know many teams, I don’t know the league. Of course, I love the national team, especially the jerseys, they’re so beautiful. I’m going to buy the next one for sure.”
