By Sharon Ekhiwere
Super Eagles head Coach, Finidi George has stated that the absence of Victor Boniface in the clash against Bafana Bafana of South Africa on Friday evening at Godswill Akpabio International Stadium was a tactical decision that the coaching crew had to take, platinumnewsng is reporting.
Fans and spectators who nearly filled the 30,000 capacity of the stadium popularly known as the nest of Champions, as well as football-loving Nigerians continue to wonder why the newly confirmed head coach of the Super Eagles didn’t even feature the Bundesliga Champion on Friday evening in a game where the super Eagles needed goals to be scored to claim victory. But Coach Finidi spoke to the media at the post-match conference stating that the decision not to feature the forward was a tactical one.
The former Enyimba manager also highlighted that the coaching crew was going to bring on Victor Boniface before the end of the game but for the injury sustained by Semi Ajayi, a centre-back substitution had to be made instead.
“It’s a tactical decision. We thought about bringing him in but we had Ajayi complain he had a knock, he couldn’t continue, so we had to reverse that. We have another game(against Benin Republic) so if he’s up and doing, he’s going to play.”
“For me, it’s about what you can give to me on the field of play. Everybody wants this player or that player to play, but at the end of the day if the player is not performing you guys (fans) will still be shouting take him off. Let us do our job. We know who is good to go we have another game, definitely, we can definitely see how we’ll be able to play these guys.
It would be recalled that Victor Boniface was one of the earliest players that arrived at the Super Eagles camp after a very impressive season at Bayern Leverkusen, winning the Bundesliga trophy unbeaten with his team and also scoring 14 goals and providing 8 assists in the just concluded season.