Peseiro explains criteria for players’ selection as Eagles depart for UAE

Super Eagles’ Coach, Jose Peseiro, yesterday, explained that it took the national team’s technical crew several weeks of evaluation to arrive at the 25 players they have chosen to represent Nigeria at the forthcoming Africa Cup of Nations.

The 2024 Africa Cup of Nations will hold in Cote d’Ivoire from January 13 to February 11, 2024. According to Peseiro, the coaches set out to pick the best available players when the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) decided that the team would go with only 25 players instead of the 27 allowed for the competition by the Confederation of African Football (CAF).

The players and their officials are expected from their different stations to Abu Dhabi, UAE, today, for a six-day training camp, which will see the Eagles play two friendly games against Burkina Faso and DR Congo.

Peseiro said the players chosen from the 41-man list were those that were part of the team from the day he became the national team coach and some new players, who passed all the criteria the technical crew used in selecting the team.

“We also considered their performance in their clubs and for the national team. Some players play well for their clubs and fail to produce same result for the national team, while some play well for the national team, but do not do well in their clubs. So, we chose those that play well for us. We also looked at current form of the players for their clubs. We combined all the three criteria to choose the best possible players.”

The coach added: “We also looked at each player’s fighting ability, on and off field relationship with others, character. When there are players with same quality, we picked the ones that create better atmosphere for us. But it was not easy to choose the players from