Super Eagles and Atalanta forward, Ademola Olajade Lookman, has spoken highly of Rwanda ahead of their World Cup qualifier tomorrow, Soccernet.ng reports.
The 27-year-old attacker touched down Kigali on Monday, alongside William Troost-Ekong, Calvin Bassey, Ola Aina and Alex Iwobi ahead of Nigeria’s crucial World Cup qualifier against Rwanda on Friday, and has participated in all of the team's full training sessions.
Ahead of the primed fixture tomorrow, Lookman has backed the Super Eagles for success, while admitting the Amavubi will be tough to play against.
Ademola Lookman talks about his status as Africa’s best player, plus the crucial World Cup qualifier versus Rwanda pic.twitter.com/nERgWRFlyR
— Super Eagles (@NGSuperEagles) March 20, 2025
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What Lookman said
Quizzed about how he feels to reunite with the Nigerian squad for the first time since he was crowned the best player in Africa, Lookman counted his blessings.
“It's a blessing, it's a pleasure, and most definitely an honour, to be among the people here who have won the award, like my teammate last year, Osimhen, my brother.
“To be able to be crowned this is a blessing. It's something I hold with great honour and great respect,” the former RB Leipzig attacker said in an interview with the NFF.
“Now, the team is looking forward to Friday's game, the first game. We're looking to go out there and to work hard and to impose ourselves on the game and have a good time.
“We know Rwanda is a good team, we know about their quality, but at the end of the day, we need to be focusing on ourselves and try to bring the game to them, to fight together for the win.”
“Everybody knows the level of the players that we have here. It's an incredible group of players, and most importantly, they're good people. Everyone has the same objective – to want to win, and that's very important.
“The group is together, very tight-knit, so that's the winning formula. Everybody's positive, we've had two good training sessions. So we're looking forward to putting out a great performance,” the CAF Player of the year concluded.
When Will Nigeria play?
Nigeria will trade tackles with Rwanda in Kigali on Friday, March 21, before returning to the Godswill Akpabio International Stadium in Uyo to lock horns with Zimbabwe four days later.
The two games are must-win fixtures for the Super Eagles, who have endured a torrid start to the World Cup qualifying campaign.
