Former Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr has lifted the lid on the strength of time it took him to convince Ademola Lookman to switch from England to Nigeria, according to a report by owngoalnigeria.com.
Lookman, who is one of the stars of the Super Eagles and a clear favourite to win the Africa Player of the Year award played for England at various youth levels, including winning the U20 World Cup in 2017.
Rohr, while speaking on the rise of the new Super Eagles star, explained that it took almost two years for the forward to accept his offer to play for Nigeria and unfortunately when he finally did, he was no longer the coach of Nigeria.
“It started in 2020 and the approval came in 2021 when I was no longer the coach of the team. In my provisional list for the AFCON, I listed him but we were still waiting for approval. It came in 2022 just after the tournament in Cameroon. I am happy with his progress so far even though he scored twice against my team,” the Benin Republic coach said.
“I will say he was around the senior national team set up of England for a while and we had to wait for him after speaking with his representatives and some of his family members. It took two years and I am sure he isn’t regretting it now.”
