Why Nigeria Shouldn’t Copy South Africa’s Reliance on Local League Players
Nigeria and South Africa are two powerhouses in Africa in terms of football, with the former regarded by many as the giants of Africa.
Both countries were placed in the same Group at the FIFA World Cup qualifiers, but it was South Africa that secured the automatic qualification to the global football event with the Super Eagles settling for second.
Nigeria vs South Africa: Local league players
Football analyst, Kingsley Akpan, shared his thoughts about having a national team structured with mostly local league players.
The Nigerian journalist claimed he not a fan of having making the majority part of your national team with local league stars. He also made reference to the England national team having two of their biggest stars outside the English Premier League.
"I don't want to buy into all of this 'structure your or let the foundation or the spring board of your national team be your league back home', I am not buying into all of that," he said.
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"Two of the big players England has are not playing in the English Premier League, Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham, it is good for us to structure our league but it's not a must for us to take a player form the NPFL except in a position that they are the best and they better than what we can bring in from abroad."
Akpan claimed Nigeria can't learn anything from South Africa in terms of players as Nigeria edges them when it comes to having quality players.
"We can't learn anything from South Africa in term of players because Nigeria have more better players than they do. If you pick a first XI for Nigeria and the rest, if you pick the next XI they would still be better than SA best XI.
"In our World Cup qualifying group, Nigeria, South Africa, Benin, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Rwanda, if they put up all star in the group, i mean the best player of all the countries Nigeria top all of them, so we should be qualifying from the group."
Source: Briefly News
