Atletico Madrid star & U2O World Cup winner Kondogbia unavailable vs Nigeria; Mafouta doubtful

Central African Republic's biggest star Geoffrey Kondogbia has been ruled out of the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Nigeria, manager Raoul Savoy has confirmed.

And the omission of the defensive midfielder has nothing to do with fitness issues considering that he started against AC Milan in the Champions League midweek but did not take to the pitch in Saturday's win versus Barcelona only because of accumulated bookings - five in total after six games in this season's La Liga.

Kondogbia was omitted from the 23-man squad list named on Thursday for the back-to-back matches against the Super Eagles.

The 28-year-old was a member of the France side that won the 2013 FIFA U20 World Cup, a squad also containing Manchester United's Paul Pogba, Everton's Lucas Digne, West Ham's Alphonse Areola and Glasgow Celtic's Christopher Jullien.

Savoy explained in an Instagram conversation with Pascal : "You know football is like this, sometimes you have players, sometimes not. I think all the coaches in the world have to do it.

"And for these games Geoffrey Kondogbia is not with us for some reasons I don't want to explain here.

"We are going to play without him and the players they know that they have to do the best in the field.

"When he's back we will of course be better but for now we have to do without him, for now he's not in the team, then we have to adapt ourselves and the players know that they have to do the job without him".

The likelihood of in-form Neuchâtel Xamax attacker Louis Mafouta taking to the pitch against Nigeria is very, very slim following his omission from the roster.

Again, the 17-cap international has no fitness issues as he went the distance against FC Schaffhausen on October 1.

Savoy added : "He's one of the key players talking about the strikers. He's doing well in Switzerland. We'll see if he will be in the field or not.

"For now we are going to play without him as well but we never know in the last couple of hours."

Nigeria manager Gernot Rohr will not be able to count on Premier League stars Alex Iwobi, Wilfred Ndidi and Oghenekaro Etebo for the matches against Central African Republic.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel

Photo Credit : instagram.com/kondogbia

All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from allnigeriasoccer.com