Former Super Eagles Goalkeeper, Peter Rufai is worried that the managers of the senior national team has made inclusion in the squad an all comers affair.
Rather than stick to the best available Nigerian players, Rufai says the coaches no longer look at pedigree before calling players to the national team.
Speaking in Lagos on Tuesday, Rufai said it is unfortunate that players who do not play regularly for their teams and others in obscure clubs now dominate the Super Eagles.
Arguing that the Super Eagles is not a place to advertise players, the former Go Ahead Eagles of Holland star said the players’ performance and calibre of clubs they played should determine their invitation to the Super Eagles as was the practice in the past.
Rufai urged the Eagles’ coaches to create a standard and raise the competition for places in the national team if they desired to take Nigeria back to its glory days.
“I don’t think there is a set standard a player should attain before his invitation to the Super Eagles these days.
“You have to resort to Google to find out details of some players we parade in the national team now. But in our days your performance and the club you play for determined your invitation.
“During my days I was looking forward to taking over from Emmanuel Okala, Best Ogedegbe, Joe Erico and Peter Fregene.
But now people stroll into the national team from obscurity. This is not good for our football,” he said.
Meanwhile, another former Nigerian Goalkeeper, Ike Shorunmu has advised national team coach, Gernot Rohr to maintain a high level of hard work and persistence if the team were to come out good not just in the qualifiers, but also during the African Nations Cup competition proper, reports footballlive.ng.
Shorunmu said continuous hard work would help thee coaches correct some anomaly in the team, adding that the players should be made to focus properly on the back-to-back qualifiers between Nigeria and Libya to ensure they win both legs and top the group.