About 20 players have been officially dropped from the U20 WAFU squad who are supposed to head to Togo in a major change that sees less than half the team who qualified the country to next year’s World Cup making the trip. Only seven players of the squad who played during the qualifiers will be going to Togo as an age rule has knocked out both players who qualified the team to the U20 AFCON in Niger as well as some new hopefuls mainly from the U17s. Also some of the players have moved overseas. 

The top two goalkeepers during the U20 AFCON qualifiers, Detan Ogundare and Akpan Akpan are not available as they are currently playing in Argentina, which means there will be three new goalkeepers in Togo. Kano Pillars pair of Nazifi Yahaya and Alhassan Ibrahim are with Danish club Brondby.

The Flying Eagles are drawn against rivals Ghana, Benin and Niger in Group B of the sub-regional tournament, which gets underway next weekend. The team which now has Skipper Ikouwem Udoh, Wasiu Alalade, Valentine Ozornwafor, Abubakar Ibrahim Babawo, Maxwell Effiom and Adesina Gata as the players from the old squad of players. are due to depart Nigeria for Lome on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Flying Eagles defeated John Utaka Academy 3-1 today in a final test game at the FIFA Goal Project in Abuja.