Ikpeba urges Osimhen to emulate Salah and Mane, list coaches vying for Eagles’ job
Ikpeba, Monaco’s all-time top scorer in European competitions with 14 goals, had shared his opinion on Osimhen
Former African footballer of the year Victor Ikpeba has told Napoli striker, Victor Osimhen to humble himself and emulate the likes of Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane of Liverpool.
Ikpeba believes the young striker took his reaction over comments he(Ikpeba) made about in the aftermath of Nigeria’s defeat to Ghana too far.
Ikpeba, Monaco’s all-time top scorer in European competitions with 14 goals, had shared his opinion on Osimhen attempting to score a spectacular goal while Nigeria was in dire need of a goal to clinch Qatar ticket.
Osimhen, however, took to social media to tackle the 1996 Olympics gold medalist.
“I have seen the timeline of what happened, I can be the father to the young Victor, I have seen Victor before, very modest good young lad,” reports Sports Day.
“A lot of things came to play, sometimes players can take decisions because of emotions and respond, so I’ve really moved on.
“Victor is one of those players that have a lot of character. He still needs to grow up, he’s not yet the finished article, he’s going to be one of our top players in the future, but he needs to humble himself and try to learn.
“It’s a learning process, he knows how many years it took him to be in Napoli so my only advice to him is to look at the way the likes of Salah, Mane carry themselves and concentrate on his footballing career,” he added.
Ikpeba also revealed the names in the final shortlist of coaches in line to be employed by the NFF.
The list contains the likes of Laurent Blanc, Phillip Cocu, Ernesto Valverde, and ex-Porto boss, José Peseiro.
He said the above-mentioned coaches applied for the vacant Super Eagles job.
The list of seven candidates was trimmed to four by the Technical Committee, which has forwarded its recommendations to the Executive Committee of the NFF.
“We have about six, seven foreign managers that applied, the names are all out but some of them were not mentioned,” Ikpeba
“We looked at the profiles and we decided three, four of the foreign managers we take it to the Executive Committee of the NFF Board to decide.
“Ernesto Valverde, Laurent Blanc, Phillip Cocu and José Peseiro applied for the Super Eagles job and based on their profile they were shortlisted,” he said.
