Okoye dodges question on Uzoho as he speaks on upcoming game, playoff draw World Cup, Guinea-Bissau

Published: January 21, 2022

Goalkeeper Maduka Okoye has indicated that the Super Eagles will give everything they have in order to beat Tunisia in a round of sixteen clash at the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations on Sunday, January 23.

The Watford loanee made his Africa Cup of Nations debut in one of the glamour ties of the group stage, Nigeria's opener versus Egypt, and also started the matchday two clash against Sudan.

Speaking to reporters the end of training on Thursday, Okoye said : "It is good to get respect from your opponents so any game is going to be good and especially for the fans, nice to watch, we are going to give everything like we did in every game before".

Okoye was one of the eight starters not named in the starting lineup in Nigeria's dead rubber clash against Guinea-Bissau on Wednesday and in his stead Omonia Nicosia's Francis Uzoho got the nod from manager Augustine Eguavoen.

Of the four netminders in camp, the 2013 U17 World Cup winner is the only goalkeeper not to concede at the Africa Cup of Nations, positing a shutout against Tunisia at AFCON 2019 before another clean sheet vs Guinea-Bissau.

Asked to rate the performance of his rival, Uzoho and the entire team's display against Guinea-Bissau, Okoye chose to speak only on the Super Eagles.

"It was as expected a difficult game but in the end we showed our qualities and proved that even against teams like this people sometimes underestimate how difficult it is to play against we showed that we can also beat these teams."

The Sparta Rotterdam star concluded by sharing his view on Saturday's draw for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers third round.

"It is very interesting because in March there is going to be another very important game but first of all we focus on AFCON and then we're going to see."

Ifeanyi Emmanuel

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