From Francis Ajuonuma, Lagos
Nigeria International and SC Paderborn 07 of Germany left-back, Jamilu Collins has expressed optimism that the current Super Eagles squad look good to become dominant again.
Apart from three successful outings at AFCON (1980, 2004 and 2013), the Super Eagles best outing at the world level was at the 1994 FIFA World Cup in USA where they were stopped in the round of 16 stage by eventual finalist, Italy.
Jamilu Collins, who spoke recently in an interview with a sports radio station, hinged his optimism on the quality of young players available in the team, currently being coached by German tactician, Gernot Rohr.
According to the former HNK Rijeka of Croatia defender, most of young players in the current Super Eagles are rated among the best in the world and have proved to have all it takes to ruffle shoulders with the big teams of the world.
He picked out Victor Osimhen, Samuel Chukwueze, Samuel Kalu, Henry Onyekuru and Simon Moses amongst others as the players to make things happen for the Super Eagles.
“Globally, I think we’ll be there. We’ll be in a very, very encouraging position in the next years to come because we’ve a lot of talented players that are rated among the best young players in the world,” he said.
“The likes of Osimhen and Chukwueze- these are players that the Eagles are looking up to because they have a lot to give to the team. And not just them.
“We’ve Samuel Kalu, we’ve Henry Onyekuru, we’ve Simon Moses and a lot. So I believe we could do all of things and we could achieve a lot of things in the years to come,” added, who has been capped 11 times for the Super Eagles.
Responding to his experience playing in the German Bundesliga, Jamilu Collins, who has made 53 appearances for SC Paderborn since joining them on September 6, 2017 from HNK Rijeka, described it as very competitive and tough league.
“To be honest; there is no one tough opponent because the Bundesliga is so crazy that you can expect everything from anywhere. It doesn’t matter if you play against FC Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund, Paderborn team can come from nowhere to make something. So the fight is just there.
“It’s impossible to say this is my toughest opponent and this is not because from the start of the season it’s been fight, fight, fight, fight and that is just it. We’ve the best world class teams like Bayern, like Dortmund, like FC Schalke 04; all these are world class clubs with classic players but in general in terms of playing, the challenge in the league is too high,” the 25 years old product of Abuja Football College Academy concluded.
