Turkish Super Lig side Caykur Rizespor have celebrated their winger Ibrahim Olawoyin following his invitation to the Super Eagles.
Olawoyin was handed his maiden invitation to the Super Eagles by head coach Finidi George on Thursday.
The 26-year-old was called up as replacement for Bayer Leverkusen’s Nathan Tella, who pulled out of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers against South Africa and Benin Republic due to personal reasons.
The winger earned his invitation on the back of his impressive performances for Rizespor in the 2023/24 season.
Read Also:NPFL: Remo Stars Cannot Afford To Drop Points Against Kano Pillars –Ogunmodede
The former Enugu Rangers star scored eight goals in 36 league appearances for his club.
Rizespor congratulated their player through the social media.
” We wished success to our player Ibrahim Olawoyin, who was called to the squad of the Nigeria national team for the matches against South Africa and Benin in the 2026 World Cup African qualifier”, the wrote on X.
The Super Eagles will host South Africa at the Godswill Akpabio International Stadium, Uyo next week Friday.
They will face Benin Republic in Abidjan three days later.
9 Comments
NFF suppose to arrange friendly matches for all those players playing in small clubs in Belgium, Turkey, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Spain, even English league division 2 to try new players for future invitations, is risky to invite untested player for crucial World cup qualifer like this! You can’t just invited unknow players to national team. South Africa might surprise Nigeria if care is not taking
But the core of SE players are there to do the job! What do you do as a coach when your 1st 11 team suffer injury set back? The unknown players in the squad are only 3, so we can sprinkle them in and see what they are capable of.
Don’t mind them.
You now see why some of us prefer foreign coaches? I hope Finidi is not under any pressure to field certain players because some powers that be made him coach. This is a crucial match and a must win! Why not field the ones who played AFCON and try some known players to replace the ones with injury instead of inviting unknown players for a must win match. Anyway Finidi I hope you are not digging your own failure already? In these hard times football is the only thing that gives us succor in Nigeria
Nut someone just .ade a valid point as regards that, just 3 players that are new in the squad and they may not even start the natch so what’s the problem there
If he fails to qualify Nigeria for the world cup he will be sacked immediately…
You may say they are unknown player but I can tell you that some of them particularly this Ibrahim will play better than Nathan Tella. This new guys will add energy and determination to their game than some of our established players. The same south Africa is coming with local players and what special about them. Go and watch Ibrahim video you will know that the guy is good.
I wish Ibrahim well but they all come flashy in well crafted videos but fade away like the star with time.
Example Onuachu, Ejuke, Tella and Aribo.
Coachie that Aribo really surprised me o. I watched his video then and I began to thank God for giving us a gem. But…the rest is history.
Ejuke tried and he will still do well. Onuachu is all about not fitting well to Nigerian pattern of play.
We never really see Tella.
Which team can Onuachu fit in apart from low league. Come off it, when Onuachu was going to premier league, my question was who normally advice this people, bcos it was very obvious that premier league is not for Onuachu, neither can he play in Spanish or french league but next time he want to make a move he should try Bundesliga. That’s my candid advice to him. I don’t know how long it’s going to take you people that Onuachu is not a player for SE.
You guys should snap out of that his attempt on goal against Algeria in his first match for SE that hit cross bar. That has made many fans delusional. That’s only record or stat he has with SE.