{"id":14640,"date":"2019-08-25T15:56:16","date_gmt":"2019-08-25T15:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/nigeria\/?p=14640"},"modified":"2019-08-25T15:56:16","modified_gmt":"2019-08-25T15:56:16","slug":"aston-villas-defensive-giant-dubbed-the-next-van-dijk-handed-maiden-nigeria-call-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/aston-villas-defensive-giant-dubbed-the-next-van-dijk-handed-maiden-nigeria-call-up","title":{"rendered":"Aston Villa&#8217;s Defensive Giant Dubbed The &#8216;Next Van Dijk&#8217; Handed Maiden Nigeria Call-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>new Aston Villa signing Iffy Udanoh has received a maiden call-up to the Nigerian National Team.<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div>The <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nigeria_Football_Federation\">Nigeria Football Federation<\/a> have invited the\u00a0 6-feet-4-inches tall central defender to link up with the Golden Eaglets at their pre-World Cup training camp in Abuja and manager Manu Garba is expected to begin running the rule over the 16-year-old as from Monday, August 26.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Born in Maryland, United States, Udanoh is also eligible to represent the national teams of United States and England.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>While the 2003-born center back is already in Nigeria ahead of his first training session with the Golden Eaglets, there has been an issue with his good pal, former Watford teenage sensation Nigel Aris, who has also received an invite to the national team.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Aris is battling to get a visa to Nigeria as his Nigerian passport has expired and the Embassy in the United Kingdom has been slow processing his application for a new traveling document.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Udanoh is a no-nonsense defender with excellent aerial attributes and has been likened to Liverpool star Virgil van Dijk by his minders.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>new Aston Villa signing Iffy Udanoh has received a maiden call-up to the Nigerian National Team. &nbsp; The Nigeria Football Federation have invited the\u00a0 6-feet-4-inches tall central defender to link up with the Golden Eaglets at their pre-World Cup training camp in Abuja and manager Manu Garba is expected to begin running the rule over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":14644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[116,789,393,122],"class_list":["post-14640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-football","tag-nigeria-football-federation","tag-pl","tag-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Aston Villa&#039;s Defensive Giant Dubbed The &#039;Next Van Dijk&#039; Handed Maiden Nigeria Call-Up - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/aston-villas-defensive-giant-dubbed-the-next-van-dijk-handed-maiden-nigeria-call-up\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Aston Villa&#039;s Defensive Giant Dubbed The &#039;Next Van Dijk&#039; Handed Maiden Nigeria Call-Up\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"new Aston Villa signing Iffy Udanoh has received a maiden call-up to the Nigerian National Team. &nbsp; The Nigeria Football Federation have invited the\u00a0 6-feet-4-inches tall central defender to link up with the Golden Eaglets at their pre-World Cup training camp in Abuja and manager Manu Garba is expected to begin running the rule over [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/aston-villas-defensive-giant-dubbed-the-next-van-dijk-handed-maiden-nigeria-call-up\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-25T15:56:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/2019\/08\/1141Udanoh.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"270\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"alico\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"alico\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/aston-villas-defensive-giant-dubbed-the-next-van-dijk-handed-maiden-nigeria-call-up#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/aston-villas-defensive-giant-dubbed-the-next-van-dijk-handed-maiden-nigeria-call-up\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"alico\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/50afd2ef4f0e900bd0a176404a8484a7\"},\"headline\":\"Aston Villa&#8217;s Defensive Giant Dubbed The &#8216;Next Van Dijk&#8217; 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