Manchester United and England captain, Wayne Rooney and Chelsea’s former striker, Didier Drogba are among the stars from across the world scheduled to participate in Joseph Yobo’s centenary and testimonial game billed to hold in Port Harcourt on May 27 2016 at the Adokiye Amiesimaka stadium, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Joseph Yobo, former captain of the Super Eagles who remains Nigeria’s highest capped player with 100 appearances, three World Cup appearances and six African Cup of Nations appearances said that requests by players all over the world to be part of the testimonial was frightening.
Speaking during the unveiling of the programme for the testimonial match, Yobo, who captained Nigeria to its third African Nations Cup triumph in 2013, disclosed that many of the stars who played with and against him during his over 15 years sojourn in European football have indicated interest in coming to Nigeria for the game.
"I keep asking if we can contain the number of players who want to come here,’’ he said Tuesday at the Eko Hotels where he set another record, drawing 16 ex-internationals, four former coaches of the Eagles and six former captains of the Super Eagles to attend his testimonial Press Conference. Though Yobo could not speculate on names, he said that the scramble to part of his testimonial was huge but noted that his former coach at Everton, David Moyes would come with a team. ‘’Moyes coming with a team to me is huge.
Didier Drogba, Kolo Toure, Samuel Eto Fils are all confirmed for the match in Port Harcourt.’’
Yobo played for over six years for Everton with Moyes as his manager when Rooney was just cutting his teeth as a player in the Liverpool-based club’s first team.
Yobo revealed that the match, which was early scheduled to hold in Lagos, was moved to Port Harcourt when the foreign players kicked against the artificial turf of the Teslim Balogun Stadium.
Earlier, chairman of the event, John Masteroudes, a former Nigeria Football Association (NFA) executive committee member, congratulated Yobo for being among the progressive elements in the development of the country’s football.
He said, “it is very difficult for anybody to play up to a 100 matches for the national team and I am happy that Yobo’s contributions to the national team is being appreciated.
Among the former Super Eagles’ coaches and players at the event were Austin ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu, Taribo West, Ifeanyi Udeze, Peter Rufai, Augustine Eguavoen, Christian Chukwu, Amodu Shaibu, Fanny Amun, Henry Nwosu, Victor Ikpeba and Tajudeen Disu.
“I am glad that Oliseh decided to leave, not because he is not a good coach, because his presence was very divisive to the team.
“I hope that with Siasia we will have a united team with no more divisions because that is the only way we can think of getting a good team,” he said.
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