Etebo to miss Madrid match

Super Eagles midfielder, Oghenekaro Etebo has not recovered from a muscle injury that kept him out of Nigeria’s recent friendlies and will not play in today’s La Liga clash between Las Palmas and Real Madrid at the Estadio de Gran Canaria.

Manager of the Canary Islands based team, Paco Jémez, has omitted Etebo from the list of 18 players called up for the match day 30 fixture.

Former Nigeria international, Emmanuel Emenike is still on the sidelines, and also misses out, while Imoh Ezekiel is in line to play his third game for the club, as he has been included in the matchday squad.

Etebo was prevented from travelling to Wrocław last week to link up with his Super Eagles teammates for the friendly against Poland after Las Palmas medics recommended that he should stop all sporting activities. And he was left out of the matchday squad versus Serbia three days ago after failing a fitness test on his arrival in the English capital.

Prior to the midfielder’s spell on the sidelines, he had started all the matches played by Las Palmas in the Spanish top-flight since completing a loan move from Portuguese setup CD Feirense.

Allnigeriasoccer.com reports that Etebo will earn wages of 120,000 euros net (approximately N52.8 million) for the five months he is at Las Palmas and that amount does not include performance-related bonuses.

Meanwhile, Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr has admitted that he was facing a selection dilemma but has welcomed it nonetheless, as he has three quality players to pick from for the left-back position.

The coach has stressed that he’s not confused about his first-choice of left-back ahead of the 2018 World Cup.

Amkar Perm defender Brian Idowu appears to be ahead of Elderson Echiejile (Monaco) and Ola Aina (Chelsea) in Rohr’s pecking order of left backs, with the Russian-based star starting the last two games played by the Super Eagles in March.