Nigeria’s head coach, Stephen Keshi, has held out hope that Elderson Echiejile could still feature at the World Cup after initial reports said he is out due to injury and has, therefore, been replaced.
AS Monaco defender Elderson suffered a muscle tear during the warm-up game against Greece and officials confirmed he has been replaced by Enugu Rangers forward Ejike Uzoenyi.
This change has already been effected on the FIFA website.
But Keshi has now come forward to paint a clearer picture of the situation.
“He is not totally out yet, we are still looking at him. “We hope he will come back. But if it happens that he doesn’t, we will go on like that,” the Eagles coach told Cool FM Radio station monitored yesterday from Abuja.
AfricanFootball.com can exclusively revealed that Elderson did not fly out from the United States of America to Brazil yesterday as he stayed behind to see a specialist.
The specialist was recommended to the player by a top official of the team.
A reliable source informed AfricanFootball.com: “He is with the specialist in the USA and so far the results have been positive.”
Also, AfricanFootball.com correspondent in Enugu, Otuchelu Olieh, who watched Uzoenyi train with Enugu Rangers yesterday morning at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium in Enugu, reported the player told him he has not received “signal” from the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) yet.
“No signal yet; we will talk later,” Uzoenyi answered our reporter when he was asked when he hopes to set out to Brazil.