Taiwo Awoniyi has been drafted into Nigeria\u2019s squad for the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers against Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau following Victor Osimhen\u2019s withdrawal through injury.<\/p>\n
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) confirmed Awoniyi\u2019s inclusion on Sunday through the official Super Eagles X account, welcoming the striker back to the national team.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoventry City striker Taiwo Awoniyi replaces Victor Osimhen in Nigeria\u2019s squad for the AFCON 2027 qualifiers against Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau.<\/p>\n
\u201cWelcome back, Taiwo,\u201d the Super Eagles posted.<\/p>\n
Awoniyi, 29, recently joined newly promoted English club Coventry City from Nottingham Forest in a reported \u00a39 million deal.<\/p>\n
His call-up follows the decision to withdraw Osimhen from the squad after the Galatasaray forward failed to recover from a right adductor muscle strain in time for the qualifiers.<\/p>\n
Osimhen had initially been included in Eric Chelle\u2019s squad, with hopes that he would regain full fitness during the international window. However, he missed Galatasaray\u2019s S\u00fcper Lig clash against Trabzonspor on September 19, which had been viewed as a key fitness test.<\/p>\n
The Super Eagles subsequently confirmed that Osimhen remains under treatment and will miss Nigeria\u2019s opening AFCON qualifying fixtures.<\/p>\n
Nigeria will face Madagascar on September 25 before taking on Guinea-Bissau on September 29.<\/p>\n
Chelle had earlier named separate squads for the AFCON qualifiers and Nigeria\u2019s international friendly against Russia.<\/p>\n
Following the two qualifiers, the Super Eagles are scheduled to face Russia in Moscow on October 6, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taiwo Awoniyi has been drafted into Nigeria\u2019s squad for the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers against Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau following Victor Osimhen\u2019s withdrawal through injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9482,3815,5247,11849,9747,92,6192,11847,11850],"class_list":["post-27225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-9482","tag-afcon","tag-afcon-qualifier","tag-awoniyi","tag-injured","tag-nigeria","tag-osimhen","tag-qualifiers","tag-squad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27225"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27227,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27225\/revisions\/27227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}