Posted on: 10:03 Sat, 28 Nov 2015



GOAL

Former Nigeria captain Christian
Chukwu has dismissed the suggestion
that Golden Eaglets’ star Victor
Osimhen is currently too young to
succeed with the Nigeria U23 team.

The 2015 Fifa U17 golden boot and
silver ball winner made Samson
Siasia’s 21-man squad to the African
U23 Championship in Senegal.

And Chukwu feels that the 16-year-
old defenders nightmare has what it
takes to with the Dream Team VI in
spite of his lack of experience at the
highest level.

“Osimhen is a talented player and he
is not too young to play in the
Under-23 team,” Chukwu told Punch.

“Many world-class players began at a
very young age. Pele and Neymar
started playing for the Brazilian
senior national team when they were
very young.

“Osimhen is not even too young to
play in the Super Eagles. The Under
23 team is a good place for him to
develop and I believe his
participation in the tournament
(Senegal 2015) will do him a lot of
good as well as helping the team.”

The former Super Eagles head coach
also advised the Nigeria U23 team to
a win their first match against Mali
on Sunday to put them in a good
position for the title challenge.

“The first match of any competition
is very important if the team wants
to go far.

“ It helps to avoid the trouble of
resulting to permutations to leave
the group and it also eases pressure
off a team in the other matches,” he
concluded.