AFCON 2023: Terem Moffi to join Super Eagles on Saturday

French Ligue 1 club OGC Nice will release Terem Moffi for Super Eagles duty after their league match against Rennes on Saturday evening.

The 24-year-old was a late replacement for Bayer Leverkusen striker, Victor Boniface, who was ruled out of the 2023 AFCON after sustaining injury in training.

According to CAF’s regulations, a player in the final squad can only be replaced after a serious injury no less than 24 hours before the team’s first match.

After getting the green light, the striker will then fly to Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire to join the Super Eagles squad on Sunday.

The Super Eagles will lock horns with the Nzalang Nacional of Equatorial Guinea in their first game on January 14 — the same Moffi will join the camp— at the Olympic Stadium in Ebimpé.

However, he would be available for the second game against the host nation, Cote d’Ivoire on January 18.

Although the prolific striker made coach Jose Peseiro’s provisional 40-man list for the AFCON, he was not included in the final 25-man list that was released.

Moffi’s initial exclusion was a huge surprise, with many questioning the inclusion of skipper Ahmed Musa instead.

He has scored 7 goals in 17 games for OGC Nice this season and has scored four goals in 12 appearances for the three-time African champions.

The former Lorient player made his international debut in a friendly against Cameroon in June 2021 and has gone on to make a further 13 appearances for the national team.

Nigeria is in Group A of the four-week, 24-nation finals alongside host nation Cote d’Ivoire and Africa’s other two Guinean nations – Equatorial Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau.

“I’m happy to be back in the team, naturally it was not easy for me to be left out of the team for the tournament initially. But I’m going to give my best to the team,” he told Punch.