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The Super Eagles have seen the experienced defenders ruled out of their plans heading into Tuesday’s tie against the Indomitable Lions.
The Watford and Paderborn stars suffered different knocks as the Super Eagles bowed 1-0 to the Indomitable Lions on Friday at the Wiener Neustadt Stadium – with Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa’s first-half effort settling the encounter.
While Collins was in action from start to finish, Troost-Ekong was replaced in the 90th minute by Galatasaray centre-back Valentine Ozornwafor – who was making his Super Eagles debut.
Coach Gernot Rohr confirmed this development while disclosing that he would try a new approach against Toni Conceicao’s men on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, we lost two other players to injury and it’ll be difficult for the second game in defence because Ekong and Collins are out; they cannot play, so I think we’ll have to manage this difficult situation,” the German tactician told media per Brila Fm.
“But it will be an opportunity, perhaps also to play with three defenders only, and to change the system a bit; to try something different, that’s why we are happy to have this second game.”
Also, Rohr took positives from the Super Eagles’ defeat to the five-time African kings, stating he was satisfied with the showings from his side.
“The most important thing is not the result because it was just a test match. It was interesting to see some new players because we had to manage the situation and we did well,” Rohr told newsmen.
“I think we had 17 shots on the goal while Cameroon only had three, they had only one on target which was the goal and we had six on target.
“Like I said, the result is not the most important thing in a friendly, the most important thing is to learn, to see some interesting things, to test some new players and to see what we want to do in September for the World Cup qualifiers.
“Our domination was not good enough because we had to score in the beginning of the game, but we didn’t and when you don’t score you get punished.”
Nigeria are billed to take on Mexico at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on July 3 before squaring up against Cape Verde and Liberia in September’s 2022 World Cup qualifiers.
This post was written by Chinedu Ibeakanma.
The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.