Eric Chelle hails Arokodare as one of the best strikers in the world — and after Friday night in Uyo, the Super Eagles coach has the evidence to back it up. Tolu Arokodare came off the bench at half-time and scored twice in eight minutes to turn a 1-1 stalemate into a 3-1 win over Tanzania, and Chelle did not hold back when he faced the media afterwards.
“If you give him the ball in the box, he’s one of the best strikers in the world,” Chelle said at the post-match press conference. It is the kind of praise the Franco-Malian reserves for special performances — he used almost the same words for Victor Osimhen after the Galatasaray star’s hat-trick against Benin Republic last month. Now Arokodare has earned his own version.
Chelle hails Arokodare after the brace that changed the game
Nigeria had made the perfect start in Uyo, with Alhassan Yusuf finishing off a sweeping move inside two minutes, only for Alphonce Msanga to level for Tanzania in the 32nd minute. With Ademola Lookman forced off injured before the break, Chelle reached for his bench at half-time — and his changes decided the match.
Arokodare and Moses Usor came on for Tochukwu Nnadi and Yusuf, and the Ajax striker needed just seven minutes to make his mark, converting Wilfred Ndidi’s pass in the 52nd minute. Eight minutes later he was at it again, finishing Usor’s cross with his left foot to make it 3-1 and put the result beyond the visitors.
The brace was the loudest possible answer to a morning in which Arokodare had vowed to step up in Osimhen’s absence. The 25-year-old had promised to bring his club form to the national team — and he delivered it exactly as he said he would.
From vow to verdict in 12 hours
Arokodare arrived in camp in the form of his life. He has 13 goals and four assists in 17 appearances for Ajax this season, and his two goals in Uyo took his tally to eight in his last six outings for club and country. With Osimhen sidelined after knee surgery, Nigeria needed someone to carry the goalscoring burden — and the striker who had spent the morning talking about scoring spent the evening doing it.
Chelle’s verdict matters because it is not a throwaway line. The coach has built his Super Eagles around Osimhen, and he has been careful with his praise for the men asked to fill in. To place Arokodare in the same conversation, even with the qualifier “one of”, is a public vote of confidence that will be heard well beyond Uyo.
The Zanzibar question: does Arokodare start now?
The win moved Nigeria to six points from three matches in Group L, one behind leaders Guinea-Bissau, who could only draw 1-1 with Madagascar. The return leg against Tanzania comes on Tuesday, 17 November, at the Amaan Stadium in Zanzibar — and Chelle now has a genuine selection decision to make.
Does he keep Arokodare as his impact substitute, the role from which the striker has delivered twice in this window, or does he hand him a start after a brace that changed a must-win game? Lookman’s injury, which forced the Atletico Madrid forward off before half-time, only sharpens the question: Nigeria may need Arokodare from the first whistle in Zanzibar, not the second half.
Whatever Chelle decides, the striker has made his own case — in the morning with his words, in the evening with his feet, and now with his coach’s verdict ringing in his ears. For more on the qualifiers, check today’s predictions.
Photos: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0, Mtjonenfa) — collage by SportsBuddy
