{"id":6830,"date":"2019-03-19T19:15:48","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T19:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/nigeria\/?p=6830"},"modified":"2019-03-19T19:15:48","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T19:15:48","slug":"rizespors-okechukwu-appointed-nigeria-u23-captain-kelechi-nwakali-named-assistant-captain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/rizespors-okechukwu-appointed-nigeria-u23-captain-kelechi-nwakali-named-assistant-captain","title":{"rendered":"Rizespor&#8217;s Okechukwu Appointed Nigeria U23 Captain, Kelechi Nwakali Named Assistant Captain"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Rizespor star Azubuike Okechukwu will lead the Nigeria U23 players onto the Stade du 7 Mars, Ben Gardane pitch when they tackle Libya in an U23 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier on Wednesday,\u00a0<b>allnigeriasoccer.com\u00a0<\/b>understands.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The central midfielder has the most caps for the Olympic Squad and coach Imama Amapakabo didn&#8217;t think twice before selecting him as the captain of the squad.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Okechukwu captained the Dream Team VI in every single game they played at the 2015 U23 AFCON, with the exception of the semifinal against Senegal which he missed as a result of accumulated bookings.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Arsenal loanee Kelechi Nwakali has been named as assistant captain for the two internationals against Libya.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Porto attacking midfielder is a player with excellent leadership qualities, having captained the 2015 U17 World Cup-winning Golden Eaglets and the Flying Eagles team that failed to qualify for the 2017 U20 World Cup.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Meanwhile, Bologna loanees Kingsley Michael and Orji Okonkwo, and Spezia&#8217;s David Okereke have not yet reported for international duty as at 0902 hours on Tuesday, March 19.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rizespor star Azubuike Okechukwu will lead the Nigeria U23 players onto the Stade du 7 Mars, Ben Gardane pitch when they tackle Libya in an U23 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier on Wednesday,\u00a0allnigeriasoccer.com\u00a0understands. The central midfielder has the most caps for the Olympic Squad and coach Imama Amapakabo didn&#8217;t think twice before selecting him as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":6832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[468,122,511,123],"class_list":["post-6830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-afcon","tag-sports","tag-u17","tag-world-cup"],"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>Rizespor&#039;s Okechukwu Appointed Nigeria U23 Captain, Kelechi Nwakali Named Assistant Captain - 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\/rizespors-okechukwu-appointed-nigeria-u23-captain-kelechi-nwakali-named-assistant-captain\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rizespor&#039;s Okechukwu Appointed Nigeria U23 Captain, Kelechi Nwakali Named Assistant Captain\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rizespor star Azubuike Okechukwu will lead the Nigeria U23 players onto the Stade du 7 Mars, Ben Gardane pitch when they tackle Libya in an U23 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier on Wednesday,\u00a0allnigeriasoccer.com\u00a0understands. 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