International friendly: Mikel out of Poland friendly

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Super Eagles captain, John Mikel Obi has been ruled out of the Friday international friendly match between Nigeria and Poland in Wroclaw.

Obi, who plies his professional trade with Tianjin Teda of China was battling to renew his work permit and was unlikely to get the issue resolved before Friday.

Team Administrator, Dayo Enebi Achor bemoaned the inability of the experienced striker, “We all had been hoping that the renewal would come in good time for him to fly to Poland. As it is now, it is not likely that he would make the trip.” Achor told thenff.com.

Also out of the cracker billed for the Municipal Stadium is Egypt based Junior Ajayi who was unable to secure a visa into Poland and Oghenekaro Etebo.

CHAN Eagles captain Ikechukwu Ezenwa and his South African based goal tender, Daniel Akpeyi are expected to swell the Eagles Radisson Blu hotel camp today.

Meanwhile, the duo of Leicester young stars, Wilfred Ndidi, Kelechi Iheanacho and their FC Nantes compatriot, Chidozie Awaziem arrived yesterday bringing the number of Eagles in camp to 22.

The team trained twice on Tuesday, with the same schedule for Wednesday, before Thursday’s training at match time inside the Municipal Stadium.

The match kicks off at 8.45pm (Nigeria and Poland are on same time zone) on Friday.

Friday’s showdown inside the 43,000 –capacity stadium formally opens the first phase of the Super Eagles’ preparation for the 21st FIFA World Cup finals, kicking off from June 14 to July 15 , 2018 in Russia.

After Tuesday’s game with Serbia in London, the three –time African champions will play a Send –Forth match against the Democratic Republic of Congo in Nigeria, before flying back to London for a prestige clash England’s Three Lions at Wembley on June. 2, 2018.

Four days later, they come up against the Czech Republic at their final training camp in Austria, and another friendly game is on the cards before the squad jets out to the World Cup finals in June.

Nigeria’s team base camp at the FIFA World Cup finals is located in Yessentuki, Stavropol territory in the southern region of the Russian Federation.