Peseiro faces challenge of convincing Freiburg's Noah Atubolu to make Nigerian switch

SUPER Eagles head coach Jose Peseiro is going to have to do whatever it takes to convince Freiburg's German-born goalkeeper Noah Atubolu to switch his allegiance to Nigeria ahead of next year's African Cup of Nations considering the goalkeeping crisis he is facing.

Nigeria is currently facing a goalkeeping crisis as her two first choice goalkeepers Francis Uzoho and Maduka Okoye are proving very unreliable. Apart from the fact that they make constant howlers when manning goal for Nigeria, neither of them is seeing first team, action with his club, making them both unsuitable for a major tournament like the African Cup of Nations or the World Cup.

Last Friday for instance, Uzoho cost Nigeria victory in a friendly against Saudi Arabia when he diverted an innocuous cross into his own net. His constant blunders have led to calls for the commencement of a search for new goalkeepers as this appears to be the weakest department in the squad at the moment.

Mr Peseiro has thus come under pressure to look for alternatives and of late, the likes of Atubolu and Swedish premier league club Värnamo's goalkeeper Jonathan Rasheed, have been mentioned. However, the coach has admitted that it will be difficult to convince Freiburg goalkeeper Atubolu to switch his international allegiance from Germany to Nigeria.

Omonia Nicosia's Uzoho and Udinese's Okoye have been inactive for their respective clubs this season, while Hapoel Jerusalem's Adebayo Adeleye has been heavily criticised for his performances this season. His manager Ziv Arie is said to even be considering dropping him from the starting line-up.

Atubolu, 21, would be an ideal candidate for the job as he is young and plays for a club in Europe's top five leagues. However, he is leaning towards representing Germany's senior national team as he has already played for the U17, U19, U20 and U21 teams and became provisionally cap-tied to his country of birth in May 2019 when he started against Austria at the 2019 U17 Euro.

German-based Nigerian journalist Oma Akatugba, said that Mr Peseiro has promised to work on convincing Atubolu to change his nationality but did not appear entirely convinced that the Freiburg goalkeeper would switch his allegiance. Atubolu was installed as first choice goalkeeper at Freiburg this season following the sale of Netherlands international  Mark Flekken to Premier League club Brentford and has since posted four clean sheets in 10 appearances.