Rohr to Release 30-man Super Eagles’ List Today

QATAR 2022 QUALIFIERS

*NFF awaits CAF regulation on crowd capacity to be allowed in home matches

Femi Solaja

Ahead of the Match-day 1 round of matches of the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, the 30-man list of invited players submitted by Head Coach of the Super Eagles, Gernot Rohr to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), is expected to be released today.

Super Eagles are to take on the Lone Star of Liberia 3 September, 2021 at the Teslim Balogun Stadium and four days later play away to Cape Verde’s Blue Sharks in Group C to mark the first two days of the series.

THISDAY checks revealed at the weekend that the list of players pencilled down by the coach is 30. Apart from the 23-man lists, there is an addition of seven alternate players just in case any of the invited players gets injured and is unavailable.

“The lists should be out Monday. We are also trying to make sure all the rough edges are sorted out to avoid hitches.

“There would be a 30-man list out of which alternate players will emerge in case of injury by any of the invited players,” a top level management staff confirmed to THISDAY last night.

Although the official confirmed some players from the domestic league are in the list, he declined to name them until all clear signal from the Sunday Dankaro secretariat of the NFF.

However, as has become the norm, more than 90 per cent of the team’s composition is expected to be made up of foreign-based players.

With several new Nigerian players in excellent forms in the new season in Europe, there it is likely that a few changes may happen in the team.

Another source however hinted that just few players from AFCON 2019 where Nigeria won the bronze may make the new look squad to prosecute the Qatar 2022 qualifiers.

Few changes were made to the AFCON 2019 squad that picked maximum points against Benin Republic and Lesotho to qualify Nigeria for the African tournament next January in Cameroon.

Meanwhile, the NFF is yet to ascertain from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) the numbers of fans to be allowed into Eagles home matches at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos.

The last round of AFCON 2021 matches last March was the mop up period for the Covid-19.

With the third wave spreading fast with the Delta Variant considered more deadly, the NFF is expected to enforce strict protocol compliance.

“We don’t know yet the percentage of crowd to be allowed in attendance but we are looking at about 30% approval across board to all federations,” the Top NFF official responded.