Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, President Amaju Pinnick and Super Eagles captain, John Obi Mikel have stopped striker Ahmed Musa from announcing his retirement from international football.
Recall that the Leicester City forward would have announced his international retirement after he was removed as the national team vice-captain prior to Nigeria friendly match against Senegal in London.
Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr had announced that Ogenyi Onazi and not Musa was now the Super Eagles assistant captain and would lead the squad in the international friendly.dailypost.ng/2017/03/23/nigeria-vs-senegal-ahmed-musa-steps-assistant-captain-super-eagles/
The decision caused disaffection in the team as some of Musa’s mates viewed the development as humiliation of the former CSKA Moscow man.
Musa who was named the team’s captain by erstwhile coach Sunday Oliseh was demoted to vice-captain by Samson Siasia who installed Mikel as the leader of his team but the former VVV Venlo forward has been left dejected by the latest development.
A Super Eagles player told New Telegraph that Musa was about to call it quits with international football but for Pinnick who prevailed on him.
He said Mikel also called the 23-year old from China to reconsider his position.
“Rohr certainly had no choice but to replace Musa, his attitude in the team has been questionable especially because he doesn’t start games anymore; he is feeling bad that certain players are used ahead of him coupled with what happened the last time when Siasia replaced him with Mikel as Eagles’ captain.
“He is devastated over the development and that was why Rohr gave him the permission to leave the camp so as to have a clear head.
“Pinnick has spoken to him, I also know that Mikel called him last weekend when he learnt Musa was about to announce that he was quitting the Eagles.”
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