Nigeria national team head coach Gernot Rohr has revealed he would love to have Crystal Palace’s Eberechi Eze in his AFCON squad, but will not force the midfielder to switch his allegiance to the West African side.
Eze, who is still eligible to play for the Super Eagles despite representing England at the U20 and U21 levels, has been an influential figure in coach Roy Hodgson’s set up this season.
Rohr praised the 22-year-old and revealed he has held talks with him on the possibility of featuring for the Nigeria national team, but has left the decision to the attacking midfielder.
“This is a wonderful player, Ebere Eze is one of the best offensive midfielders I’ve ever seen in England and I would like to have him with us, but you know that he can also play for England and already played for one team in England,” Rohr said to Elegbete TV Sports.
“I sent him a message and in this message, I showed the interest Nigeria has to get him in this team so he replied and he said he has to think about it, so it is not the moment to speak too much about it.
“There is a process to do, at first, the boy must accept and the decision must come from him, from his parents, from his own.
“We cannot tell him he must come, he must come himself and if he wants to come he has to write a letter.
“In this letter, he has to write to Fifa that he wants to switch and to play for Nigeria, this would be wonderful, but I know that we cannot force his decision and he can only take it himself.
“What we do is to explain to him how we are working, to explain to him what we are doing, and what our objectives are – what we did with players like Alex Iwobi, like Akpoguma, we did with Ola Aina and Tyronne Ebuehi.
“We have already some players like that, if we can have Eze it would be wonderful but it’s not easy.”
Meanwhile, Rohr will hope the midfielder makes his switch before the start of the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
