Former Eagles defender, Yisa Sofoluwe has described Everton teenage striker, Ademola Lookman as unripe forNigeria’s senior national male team, Super Eagles.
His comment is coming against the move by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to convince to play for the Super Eagles.
Lookman shot into the limelight this month, when he scored just moments into his Premier League debut against Manchester City at Goodison Park.
The former Charlton youngster, who signed a £7.5m deal with the Tofees, only came onto the pitch in the 90th minute, replacing Ross Barkley with The Toffees 3-0 up. Incredibly, he scored with just his second touch, just under four minutes after coming off the bench.
Technical Director of the NFF, Bitrus Bewarang had told the BBC that, “we’ve managed to get players like Moses and Iwobi in the past and Lookman would be a great addition to the national team if we got him. “We have a young side, the new coach is building a strong squad and having some youngsters from the Premier League (Kelechi Iheanacho and Alex Iwobi) could help his decision’’, said Bewarang.
But reacting to NFF’s stance, Sofoluwe has said it was not proper to beg players to play for the national team. He recalled how players scrambled to fight for Eagles shirts during their time, Sofoluwe said the NFF was setting a wrong precedent by begging players to play for Eagles. During our time, no one begged us to play for the national team. It was a thing of pride and joy to wear the jersey of the Eagles and I believe that it should still be the same today.
