President of the Nigeria Football Federation Amaju Pinnick has opened up on how he made coach of the Super Eagles Gernot Rohr to include Ahmed Musa in his team during the qualifiers.
Pinnick made this known in an interview with Arise TV monitored by Owngoalnigeria.com while defending the importance of national team to the careers of players in the wake of the viral news of the unpaid bonuses of the Super Eagles players.
He said in 2017, Musa wasn’t getting games at his English Premier League side Leicester City and Rohr decided to omit him from the squad for the last round of qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup.
According to Pinnick, he intervened and insisted on Musa who went on to become one of the stars of the Nigerian team at the 2018 World Cup with two well taken goals against Iceland in the group stages.
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“I will give you an example, in 2017 Ahmed Musa had a lot of problem with Leicester City. Because he had problems at home with his former wife but we intervened. The NFF intervened. Unknown to so many people when there was a list for the last qualifying matches, the coach decided that he wasn’t going to call Ahmed Musa because he wasn’t playing”, he explained.
“I said listened they are some players who are club players and players who are both club players and national team. That for the first time I am going to impose Ahmed Musa on you.
“We argued about it but ultimately I am the president. He agreed and what happened in Russia he scored two beautiful goals. Ahmed Musa had to come to Kano Pillars to play because the national team adds value to them”, he concluded.
