Sunday Oliseh has responded to reports claiming that goalkeeper Maduka Okoye withdrew from Nigeria’s AFCON 2025 squad after seeking assurances over regular playing time, SportPremi reports.
The Udinese shot-stopper was included in the initial preliminary squad for the African Cup of Nations tournament by head coach Eric Chelle.
However, he was surprisingly left out of the final 28-man squad, despite injury doubts to first-choice Stanley Nwabali.
The Super Eagles begin their AFCON campaign against Tanzania on the 23rd, before playing Tunisia and Uganda on the 27th and 30th respectively.
What Oliseh said about Okoye’s AFCON absence
The major talking point after the Super Eagles final squad for the AFCON tournament was released was the absence of Maduka Okoye, who had been in remarkable form for Udinese.
Reports have however emerged that the 26-year-old opted to be left out, after he was not assured of playing time in the tournament, choosing to focus on his club performances instead.
When reacting to the news, former Nigerian head coach Oliseh refused to blame Okoye for the decision.
“The goalkeeper, they are a different race. The goalkeeper is a totally different species. It’s a different race”, Oliseh revealed.
“The way you manage the goalkeeper is not the way they manage players. Goalkeepers must know in advance whether they will play or not. That is how it’s going to be.
“Going specifically now to Okoye, the last game he played for Nigeria, I remember this boy being torn into bits online, online, television, everywhere.
“He was so much destroyed that I remember looking at it and saying, If this boy were my son. I will tell him now, go and stop playing. Just go make your life again. Forget it”, the former Super Eagles international added.
“Now, if you look at it from the man’s point of view, Okoye is now at Udinese. He is doing very well. He’s now finally got his act back together.
That is why we invite, that is why he’s even on the list of being invited. Because he has now worked himself back up, you know, and people did not even look at it that as, at the time Okoye was keeping for Nigeria, the defence was not really what it was, so he was a lot exposed, and of course he made some errors too, but he was exposed.
“Now, having fought himself back to this point. His coming now to play at the AFCON at a time when the league is still on in Europe means that he will be losing his place at Udinese”, he continued.
“If this player now comes to the Super Eagles and you don’t play him. Once again, you destroy this man because what happens is that now he will not play here.
“He will go back to his club. God forbid the goalkeeper who took his place has done well in a few games.
“They will not tell him, sorry, you went for AFCON, now you sit on the bench. The man is tied down.
“So that is why it’s not the goalkeepers, we tell the goalkeepers in advance, you’re going to keep, because they have a special way of working”, Oliseh concluded.
Nigeria will battle with Tanzania and Uganda and Tunisia in group C of the 2025 AFCON, as they chase a long-awaited fourth African title.
