Olaleye Idowu
Super Eagles captain, William Troost-Ekong has explained why he opted to play for the national team of Nigeria over the Netherlands.
Born in Haarlem, the defender chose to defect from the Netherlands to Nigeria, where his father originally hails from.
According to the former Watford star, he decided after a telephone conversation with late former Super Eagles coach Stephen Keshi, who was coaching the team at the time.
The 31-year-old played in friendly matches for his country of birth at U19 and U20 level before taking the opportunity to represent Nigeria following discussions with Keshi.
Asked why he chose Nigeria over the Netherlands, Troost-Ekong said on the latest episode of The Sports Afterparty Podcast:
“I had the decision quite early in my career. I was 20 at the time, I just finished my breakthrough season in the Netherlands, the first year of playing probably 30-plus games in the Eredivisie, which is the highest league in the Netherlands.
“And all of a sudden I got a phone call from Stephen Keshi, who was the coach at the time, ex-captain and ex-player, so I was quite blown away when he called me.
“Just at the start of the season, I had played for the Dutch U19 and U20 squads, but there was no real perspective yet for the first team.
“This was the only tangible option that I had. The choice was between trying to progress and later in my career maybe having a chance to play for the Netherlands or have a chance now to play for the Super Eagles who were kind of going through a transition stage where a lot of their defenders at that time were a little bit older, so I knew that they wanted to make some changes there.
“And taking that opportunity which then in turn would give me more perspective for my club so I kind of made that decision thinking about all those things.”
