Renowned sports physician, Jimi Osinaike has advised that Super Eagles rest goalkeeper Stanley Nwabali ahead of their crunch quarter-final tie against Angola on Friday in order for his injury to heal properly.
Stanley Nwabali clashed with a Cameroonian attacker in the Super Eagles’ 2-0 win against their long-term foes and had to be replaced by Cyprus Omonia goalie, Francis Uzoho. The injury looked serious as he had to be stretchered off the pitch, however, he was reported to have walked on his own after the blast of the final whistle to congratulate his teammates.
The goalkeeper however, also was seen with a little bit of limp during the team’s training session raising doubts and anxiety about his availability for the game on Friday.
In a chat with Brila FM, the physicist stressed that caution has to be exercised in order not to aggravate the Chippa United goalie’s injury and that he should be available to play in the semi-final and final if the team progresses.
“Yeah, I was not confident because of many reasons. So if you look at the impact of the collision at the game against Cameroon, now that impact was quite massive. And the fact that he had to be substituted after that collision also suggests that it was something, that was maybe a bit serious, but not very dangerous as it were. And because if a player gets injured on a pitch of play and the player can get substituted, it actually can suggest that something serious is happening or the doctors are trying to avoid things being aggravated.”
Jimi Osinaike went further to explain other possibilities that could stem from the akward landing of Nwabali against Cameroon which resulted to the injury: “So usually when you have a low back pain, the first thing anybody wants to do is an x-ray and when you do an x-ray, an x-ray shows you, a couple of things. If you’re not too sure you do an MRI scan. And when you do an MRI scan, you’re looking beyond the bone, you have the spectra, you’re looking at the muscles, you’re looking at the ligament, you’re looking at the disc also around that particular area. So I’m thinking that the doctors probably want to be sure that there are no other serious damage to the back such as probably the ligament, the disc, all the muscles around that particular area.”
“If you also look at the pictures we saw yesterday, I mean, he was struggling alone, and he appeared to be limping, you know, putting his hand by his waist. Now, putting all this together, you know, kind of for me, from my own experience, just shows that it’s not looking too good. It’s not looking too good. I’m not saying he would not probably play other games if we progressed, but I’m looking at the situation in which the doctors are like- Okay, let’s exercise caution. Okay, let’s not aggravate whatever is happening. And so, peradventure, we qualify for the semis and the final, he will be available for the game.”
Millions of football fans across the country would be hoping for Nwabali to be available for the game against Angola after series of impressive displays in goal since replacing Francis Uzoho as the number one goalie of the Super Eagles at the beginning of the tournament.
