After the 2019 African cup of Nation match, Nigeria had with Tunisia, sources told ESPN FC that ighalo, whose goal helped Nigeria defeat Tunisia, informed his coach ‘Gernot Rohr’ of his decision before the match to retire from playing international football. Now the 30-year-old says he is in regular contact with the super eagles’ coach and hinted he could reverse his decision to end his international career.
Manchester United striker Odion Ighalo has revealed he is contemplating returning to the Nigerian national team. The striker played a key role as the West Africans qualify for the 2019 African cup of Nation after missing the last two editions in 2015 and 2017. Ighalo was crowned the highest goal scorer in the qualifiers before firing the super eagle to a third-place finish in the tournament in Egypt, scooping the top scorer award.
Ighalo, however, announced his retirement from international football after his brilliant performance in the competition, along with the team captain John Obi Mikel.
Ighalo moved to England in January, joining one of the top six team of the league ‘Manchester United’ on loan from Chinese super league side Shanghai Shenhua and has been appreciated by the fans due to his stats that was on fire scoring four goals and providing one assist in eight games before the suspension of all football match due to the outbreak of COVID-19. The 30-year old, who recently extended his deal with the red devil until January 2021, has now set out a new decision to return to the super eagles.
“I am still in contact with Gernot Rohr and Amaju Pinnick, and they congratulated me on my loan deal,” ighalo told Brila FM. He continued and said, I am still thinking about returning to the national team, but presently I want to focus on my club career.
“I left the national team cos of the distance between Nigeria and China, but now that am in England, Manchester to be precise, you can never tell.”
Ighalo made his international debut for the super eagles against Uganda in a friendly in 2015 and had 35 caps for West Africans, netting 15 times before he announced his retirement for the national team in 2019. The forward’s return will seriously boost Nigeria’s aim to win the Africa cup of nations in the coming year and also qualify for the world cup in Qatar 2022.
