Chukwueze, Osimhen Will Be Africa’s Bests – Pinnick

The President of the Nigerian Football Federation, Amaju Melvin Pinnick has projected the duo of Napoli of Italy forward Victor Osimhen and Villarreal winger, Samuel Chukwueze, as the next big and best players in Africa.

The football administrator revealed this in an interview with Arise News TV on Tuesday while talking on a variety of issues concerning Nigerian football.

When asked on the plans the Federation has to develop young talents and also help players to secure good contracts at elite clubs in Europe, Pinnick revealed that the Federation has a talent development tournament known as The Next Eagles which is sponsored by Zenith Bank.

He said that the project was targeted at young talents who will graduate into the national team in time.

He referred to Osimhen and Chukwueze as good examples of age grade development, dubbing them the next best players in Africa.

“Well if you look at Osimhen, he started from under 17, that was when I just got newly elected.

“I led them to Chile and he was the highest goal scorer in that tournament and he started in Wolfsburg, and to one other club on loan and then to Lile and now to Napoli.

“Osimhen and Chukwueze, they are the next big thing to come out from the continent of Africa that I can tell you for free.

“Because this players, they are so passionate about the game of football, they are so passionate about their country.

” Osimhen called me two days ago because an airline could not carry him because of XYZ, and he said clearly that do I get another ticket? We said No, we are going to get the ticket for you and I am happy he has arrived. So we are very happy.

“If you see their passion, commitment for this country, the only thing we can do is to ensure that they are in the right part.

“Then coming back to your question, of course there are a lot of talents in this continent, there are a lot of talents in this country and we are ensuring that from this under-17 or from the last under-17, we have our tournament called The Next Eagles Challenge.

“From The Next Eagles Challenge sponsored by Zenith bank, we’ve been able to pick out some truly under-aged players and from there we nurture them. We monitor them, condition them and prime them for the Super Eagles and that’s why they are christened the next Eagles as their name implies.”