BY MONICA IHEAKAM

SUPER Eagles interim coach, Salisu Yusuf has tipped the duo of Man­chester City striker, Kel­echi Iheanacho and Arse­nal youngster, Alex Iwobi , to shine in the senior na­tional team for the next 10 years.

Yussuf, who handed the youngsters promi­nent roles during the two international friendly matches against Mali and Luxembourg,insisted that quality is the key word rather than harping on years of experience ,add­ing that Nigeria now have a pool of exciting young talent, who if given the chance will flourish for many years at full inter­national level.

“You don’t need expe­rience of five years before you are given responsibil­ity as long as you have the quality.”

“Kelechi and Alex have hardly started for the Eagles, but I started them in both games and they responded very well with Iheancho scoring in both games and providing as­sist as well,” he remarked.

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“We won the two games we played by playing some good football and with a very young group.

“As much as 90% of those who featured in those games can play for Nigeria in the next 10 years. We have a base now that we can be de­veloping, maybe two, three players joining up from time to time and you maintain this group to play for the country.”

He added: “We gave the young players re­sponsibility, we also gave them belief and confidence, and they took it.

“Look at Iwobi – In the first game against Mali, he started and played for 75 minutes and in the second game, he was on for more than an hour, while previ­ously he played 15, 20 minutes for the national team.