Super Eagles head coach Gernot Rohr has invited Bordeaux forward Josh Maja for the international friendly match against Ukraine billed for Dnipro Arena, Kyiv, on September 10, reports Completesports.com.
Maja’s French Ligue 1 outfit, Girondis Bordeaux confirmed the striker’s invitation on their official website on Tuesday.
This is the first time Maja who is eligible to play for both Nigeria and England will be invited to the Super Eagles.
“Nigeria coach Gernot Rohr has called up Josh Maja in the squad to face Ukraine on 10 September in a friendly. The young striker (20) will join his team-mate attack in Bordeaux, Samuel Kalu. This is his first call in the national team. Born in London of Nigerian parents, Josh is eligible for both selections [Nigeria or England],” reads the statement on Bordeaux website.
Maja linked up with Bordeuax from Sunderland in January. He also previously had stints with Crystal Palace and Fulham.
The young striker has scored one goal in four league appearances for Bordeaux this season.
By Adeboye Amosu
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COMMENTS
Very good. Hope he fits in very well.
Nice one.Abraham is taking Nigeria as a makeshift, let move ahead and cap those who are ready for us
Yep. No time. Let’s snap these guys up asap before the English get a clue. Maja is a quality forward. Can play on his own, or combine well with another forward. Deadly in the box, good with both feet and with his head. Let me add my voice to those who are urging Rohr to give EBERE EZE of QPR a call. Eze is comfortable as an AM or winger. His dribbling skill and football sense could be put to good use in the Super Eagles squad. Did I mention he is also good with free kicks?
It’s ridiculous Nigeria has to wait till April next year for Abraham to decide where he pledges his international future.
However,we are not stupid we know he is keeping options and using Nigeria as a last resort,to improvise should England fail to give him a chance but we are not stupid.With Abrahams form and Nigeria mulling over the possibility of adding the bin polled striker in our ranks,England will definitely cap him in the next internationals and he won’t turn down the three lions over Nigeria no one does.
Candidly,it’s a big loss for Nigeria because we need a big striker with a pedigree playing for a star club to lead the line for the super eagles a striker who brings fear to the opponents.
Meanwhile,we should try and lure Ejaria to the super eagles before its too late.We have the chance now because England are not keen over him but he can be useful to us,he has the the skill the flair we need to dominate opponents in the midfield.
Like the saying,make hays while the sun shines.Let’s grab the opportunity when it’s there for the taking!
Forget Abraham, he is not good and Nigeria don’t need him. He is not as good as Samuel, Henry or half Odion. We don’t need him.
As much as I love this invite, I think inviting so many players for just one friendly match is not too encouraging considering the fact that not all of them will play.
Let me digress a little bit. I enjoyed the Juventus vs Napoli game this weekend. Juve won 4-3. For me, the highlight of the game was CR7’s celebration of his goal. He smashed home a left footer from just inside the box. A clear goal from any perspective. Yet, as CR7 ran to the corner flag in celebration, he gestured to fans not to celebrate too much, and made the VAR sign with his hands! That was very funny, but also a wake up call to football officials. VAR is a good thing, but just as too much of a good thing can make it bad, VAR is becoming a nuisance, making the game less exciting. Nowadays, a goal scorer has to wait to see if the opponents want VAR checked. It disturbs the flow of the game, and just sucks the fun out of the moment. Can a limit be imposed on VAR usage in matches, such that the benefits of VAR remain, without interrupting the flow of the game? FIFA might want to take a look at the CHALLENGE SYSTEM in tennis. I think, with a little tweaking, this system will solve the current VAR problem.
VAR is not the problem, it is doing exactly what it says on the tin.
The problem, in my view, are the laws of the game and their potential interpretation once VAR is consulted.
Now that we have VAR, I think the laws of the game should now be reviewed in line with the technology available to police them.
Yes, VAR by itself was meant to be a solution, not a problem. However, the application of VAR has transformed VAR into a problem, or to put it better, the application of VAR has created new problems. Surely, the fact that goal scorers nowadays have to hesitate to see if VAR will be checked detracts from the game! And at this rate, some teams will soon start requesting to have VAR checked for everything. That is the point I think CR7 was making. His goal was clear. Not offside. But what if an opponent claims that there was an infraction before the goal, the ref has no choice but to check VAR! The game is gradually losing it’s spontaneity.
Let me add that the opponent has every right to contest the validity of a goal or a ref’s decision. However, some teams will dubiously want to contest every event on the pitch, even if there is no valid reason to, just for mind games purposes. This is a great way to attempt to manipulate the game, or influence the ref, or waste time, especially in a game’s dying minutes. I see a huge potential for a lot of ugliness here. As I said earlier, I am of the opinion that the TENNIS CHALLENGE SYSTEM, or a variation of it, will ensure that VAR is not abused, and protect the spontaneity of the game.
Although this is a welcome development, I can think of three players that based on performance deserve a call up ahead of Josh.
If we look at what they have done so far this season, Josh has played 4 matches scoring one goal for Bordeaux. However he only played a total of 89 minutes (one minute short of a full game: 45 minutes, 22 minutes, 19 minutes and 4).
1. David Okereke, he was overlooked for the match this week against Sudan and it would have been the ideal opportunity to see how his combination with osihhen could work either as a double strike force or as one of the wingers. This season he has played 5, scored 4 and one assist for Club Brugge. The most deserving.
2. Olanrewaju Kayode. Has hit a purple spot of sorts in the Turkish premier league, played 3, scored 2 and one assist
3. Chuba Akpom. Has Champions league, Europa league qualifying experience and should be ahead of Josh. Played 6, scored 2.
All three have more than three times the playing time as Josh who is more on the bench than on the pitch
@BigD,can’t agree less with your submission.However, I think Rorh is trying to act right and in time- tying down players with dual citizenship and with great prospect just so to lay to rest any form of tussle.Maja is very good only need time to settle down saw his solo goal in the first match,great goal.David and Olarenwaju are already ours and Rorh has seen them before (as they were once invited to the group)and already know what they can do.Chuba will need clearance to play.
In all I think this Country is bless,we are in a good time .
Asoko, you have a point:Josh will not require clearance as he is yet to represent England at any level thus it makes sense to ‘snap’ him up quicker.
And also, I couldn’t agree with you more, we have talents aplenty. Better days are ahead if these players can be harnessed into a cohesive, we’ll drilled outfit.
But why are we chasing foreign born Nigerian players to swift nationality,when it is always late whereas the u17 coaches are rejecting siting they are not as physical as the home groom.but in less three those rejected foreign born will be making headlines in top teams in england and the NFF will be running for them to swift nationality while the physical home groom will be no where to be found.if I may ask.the team the rejected alaba from the u17 .where are the players that represented Nigeria that year.where are the playing there club football.
My bro@asikpo forget about our so called Naija coaches some of them No nothing about football but have a big CV,and that’s what Nigerians want,
@patrick, you are spot on point. Manu/Ugbade are completely bereft of d main purpose of under age competitions. They are soooooo unable to see into potentials waiting to be harvested in few years to come. This is where d developed world are way ahead of us. I can only appeal to NFF to resuffle all our under aged national teams coaches. Some of our Ex footballers that played in Europe , eg FINIDI, OLISEH, SEMITOJE, EMENALO, Amunike etc, should come help develop our Football using our under aged national teams. The goal should be bringing kids with great potential for the future both within Nigeria n outside Nigeria n developing them. Manu/Ugbade can win Under 17 a million times, it’s just not interesting anymore cos after the win, 90% of of d players are no where to found in world football.
Inviting foreign players who ply their trade for youth teams of premiership clubs is just for a screening exercise not automatic or guaranteed spot in the team.
To make it clear,Manu have an open screening where he doesn’t see the the foreign in you rather the abilities in you.Every player that attends the screening exercises have equal opportunities on making the team.
Whether the dropped foreign player developes much better in the future is irrelevant to the present.Screening exercise is for the present and the coach has a standard what he’s looking for,so if you don’t measure up you are getting dropped it doesn’t matter where you are based and I think that should be the standard.
My problem is why not let fans see that these players are not good enough while playing for the eaglets. We were playing for third place in the last u-17 AFcon n the coach could not even introduce Akande despite his teamlosing on a game that was a dead rubber, so we all can see he is not good enough. Can’t you easily see the reason he refused to introduce Akande was the fear the little lad will win fans over n as such expose all these biased selection. Pls I want you to get my point straight, I m not clamouring for players without qualities or potential qualities to be invited simply because they are foreign born but asking that when d coach say they are not good enough, he should give fans opportunity to see they are actually not good enough. Now some will say d coach introduced players like Chukweze, Osimene to world stage. Only two out of about 44 players that won the u-17 twice in a role is a massive failure. We should be celebrating at least 50% of those players making waves in world football by now.
Chuba Akpom should also be considered, maybe in the future.
That young man is doing well with his club PAOK at the moment.
ROHR WHAT HAPPENS TO CHUBA AKPOM ??? ARE YOU NOT WATCHING HIM PLAYING EVERY WEEK IN EUROPE ? LOOK AT DAVID OKEREKE ?? LOOK AT EMMANUEL DENNIS THE SAME CLUB WITH OKEREKE
AM NOT AGAINST MAJA HE IS VERY NICE YOUNG PLAYER AM VERY MUCH GLAD TO SEE MAJA IN NIGERIA TEAM / PLEASE KINDLY EXTENDS INVITATIONS TO ALL THESE GUYS /
ROHR WE DONT WANT TO LOSE ANY OF NIGERIA PLAYERS TO ANY OF THOSE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AGAIN
Akpom have to process for nationality swift before invitation to super eagles. I know Ekereke and Dennis will have their chance.I like maja becos he is more of a skillful strikers.u know modern days strikers are not skillful but this boy maja can drbble and shoot with boths legs and be immense addition to our squad.
Why not mentioned your own name,so he will call every player that succeeded in dribbling one opponent in his club,pls u guys should stop this madness,mr Rorh is doing a great job period
Chuba is good but their is alot of process involve in his invitation because Nigeria FA will write a formal letter of swicthing international allegience to Nigeria because he had played age grade football in England same thing is applied to lookman.
@Glory and Uba,I don’t think I agree with your verdict on Manu and co…this Two made the stars we look up to today as the bedrock of SE and with whom Amuneke also understudied to produce the hottest young kid in Europe,in Chukwueze. First of all, the story of Alaba stands to be false and unsubstantiated.Secondly,we cannot be made to belief anything said on social media concerning the under 17 camp lots of info can be false.The coaches no what they want and have been successful over time,at least we have been able to conquer the age cheat to a large extent and soaring high.Tell me which of the English young players of today is better than Osimhen or Chukwueze.It is evident in the fact that our present under 17 make up is great and should be appreciated.
@Asoko only two out of about 44 double champions making waves n you are celebrating right? Does that not tell you something is wrong? Again my point is clear, coach Manu if only to prove he is not biased, should give fans opportunity to always see that these players are not good players or potentially good players. We only hear what they say n not see what they say. This just tells a whole lot about the dishonesty in selection. It’s really so sad when we understand that this is a case of nigerians discriminating against nigerian kids,simply because they were born in foreign land. And yet we cry that the white man is not being fair to our players in their various clubs.
Aside to what Patrick said above,Chuba will get his chance.You can’t invite them all at a time,except you say those called up don’t deserve to be called otherwise the team is just fine.
Am not happy with the facts that chuba snubbed Nigeria when we needed him most,look at iwobi he played at the last world cup and won bronze medal with Nigerian afcon team.three years ago I had one and one conversation with austine eguenveon,about to persuit foreign born Nigerian players to play for super eagles.he said wen he was super eagles head coach,he travel to england to meet onuoaha who was playing with man city then,he said the boy snubbed him.he met him one and one and the boy didn’t want to talk to him,the same thing with Sidney sam.where are they now,have the move to the senior team.onuoaha is languishing in us major league.some of them should be allow to suffer their consequences if not of the fact that we are short of strikers.
Can we establish a platform that get straight to NFF table,coaches of our various national teams becos I can still remember vividly the last match late keshi of blessed memory draw south Africa here in uyo where aluko scored two goals coming from the bench,the next day I met with the nigerian football club president (forgotten his name), while checking out from his hotel room at Monty suites,I told him am a lover of Nigerian football teams but I don’t have channel of communication with the nff but pls relate this information to the NFF officials that there is a Nigerian boy in barca youth team who is eligible for Holland national team that we should act fast and call him for our underage set up.the man said I should send the boy name to him that he will relate the information to the officials,I got his number. I did as I promised.after 2 months I still him a reminder.but nothing was done about it.Holland later capped the boy at youth levels.the boy later moved to Liverpool,couldn’t break into klop team.he moved to Lazio this season,last weekend he made the bench against as Roma.if the boy shoot to limelight now NFF will be running for nationality swift.Bobby adekanye.
Inasmuch as i appreciate the achievements of manu/ugbade i still dont like the fact that the aforementioned duo made us to be in a position where England even has a chance to snap up talents like ovie ejaria from under our noses abd same scenario has been playing out with players like lateef omidiji and most recently udanoh…they can @least cap tie these guys.i shared this sentiments months prior to u17 Afcon.
The policy to catch the foreign-born players young by this pinnick board should be taken seriously.
Time for Osimhen to get full game time to help build his confidence. Abraham may be a distant dream. Osimhen is closer to reality and may turn out to be just as lethal in front of goal, if not more so.
Osimene is a better player compared to Tammy, not taking anything away from Tammy though, a very good player. In my opinion, I will advice we completely forget about Tammy. Saying he will decide on April 2020 is very unacceptable because if England calls him now he will decide now n if he does, I won’t blame him going by what our u-17 coaches are putting those foreign born nigerian kids through. Anyway, I honestly don’t think SE will miss Tammy. It looks 90% that he will be the one to regret his decision. Reason I talk less about Akpom, for he had d huge chance thrown at him but foolishness led him to be waiting n shadow chasing an England call up.
@ glory
Although I share your sentiment about these foreign born players taking their time to play for us or even at instances turning us down outrightly;
But we should look at it from their lenses.
These are boys born and raised british.in thought, culture and behavior,they think of themselves as British first; except in some household that the parents trained them in the Nigerian way,making them realise their Nigerian heritage(Iwobi comes to mind).
It is easy to understand why they chose to do what they do.so when Nigeria comes knocking,they are taking aback.
It is like an estranged father coming in to ask for your love and support when you have always called your step dad ,father!
It is all too personal for them to just switch.
So I do understand the position Tammy is in right now.
You already gave a solution for the future.
Our development coaches and the FA have to catch them young,show a little concern in their development (when they haven’t yet found success); we can as well had to their development in the long run developing ourselves.it is a win win situation for us if we take that route.
But I appreciate Rohr’s effort in bringing them in.
He has made our football space attractive,so it is easier now to win these foreign born allegiance.
I just hope the development coaches take a hint from Rohr and stop being as corrupt and shallow minded as most home based coaches are…
I m just saying
Very well said @ Hush. Just why I find it really hard to critisize Rohr. He is honestly speaking,doing a great job.
@ Glory,am not celebrating just two out of 44 players.In case you have not been following the development of the rest lemme help u.Iheanacho readily comes to mind,u can’t also forget Success,the fact that they are having issues within their clubs doesn’t mean the quality is not there.The Nwakalis are a huge prospect if better managed .Kelechi Nwakali just moved to Huesca in Spain.Orji is doing very well in US not to forget Kingsley Micheal with Bologna.John Lazarus is currently the best right back in the domestic league and has rightly been called up by the under 23 coach.One of them just moved to Real Betis
I can’t remember his name .Alampasu is not doing badly in Portuga.Musa Yahaya is also not doing badly with Porto team B.My dear the list is endless u only have to develop interest in them by following them up.
Now,the fact that some of this lads are not doing so well now does not mean they will not bounce back.And their slow development cannot be blamed on their Coaches as u said.You can only blame their managers who has failed to lead them accordingly as is the case with the Nwakali brothers.As we can all see this guys are laden with talent which can only be harnessed with sound development. Where that is not the case u can’t blame That on Manu or Amuneke.Some of this guys are managed by very gullible persons who choose to go after money rather than nurturing the boys.Osimhen was merely lucky,he would have gone down the drains had he not retrace his steps by leaving Wofbug on loan to Belgium where he resurged his career.
We can’t blame the Coaches for everything.Remmeber Mikel was saved by whiskers, I mean it took the ingenuity of Siasia to return Mikel back to life.
While I like to say that not all this players will come to stardom, just as is the case with other age group in Europe and South America,I make bold to say that the ones we have now and still will resurface in few months and years is a pass mark on the Coaches.