{"id":66220,"date":"2025-05-21T15:04:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T15:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=66220"},"modified":"2025-05-21T15:04:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T15:04:00","slug":"chelle-shakes-up-eagles-squad-drops-osimhen-lookmam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/05\/21\/chelle-shakes-up-eagles-squad-drops-osimhen-lookmam\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelle Shakes Up Eagles Squad, Drops Osimhen, Lookmam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Adenike Lawal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a move that has stunned fans and analysts alike, Super Eagles head coach Eric Chelle has left out top strikers Victor Osimhen and Ademola Lookman from Nigeria\u2019s squad for the upcoming Unity Cup friendlies against Ghana and Russia.<\/p>\n<p>The Nigeria Football Federation confirmed the surprise exclusions on Wednesday, with no official reason given for the absence of the high-flying forwards despite their strong performances at club level.<\/p>\n<p>Chelle\u2019s selection signals a major shift in attacking strategy as the team prepares for two high-profile clashes.<\/p>\n<p>However, there is good news for some as goalkeeper Maduka Okoye returns to the lineup, joined by Frank Onyeka, Kelechi Iheanacho, and veteran skipper Ahmed Musa, who is expected to anchor the squad with his experience.<\/p>\n<p>The omissions have sparked intense debate, with many questioning the timing and tactical reasoning behind sidelining two of Nigeria\u2019s most potent attacking threats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Adenike Lawal In a move that has stunned fans and analysts alike, Super Eagles head coach Eric Chelle has left out top strikers Victor Osimhen and Ademola Lookman from Nigeria\u2019s squad for the upcoming Unity Cup friendlies against Ghana and Russia. The Nigeria Football Federation confirmed the surprise exclusions on Wednesday, with no official [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":66221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-66220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66222,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66220\/revisions\/66222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}