{"id":135656,"date":"2019-07-14T10:38:23","date_gmt":"2019-07-14T09:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=135656"},"modified":"2019-07-14T10:46:26","modified_gmt":"2019-07-14T09:46:26","slug":"nigeria-vs-algeria-rohr-speaks-on-problem-with-not-playing-mikel-obi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=135656","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria vs Algeria: Rohr speaks on ‘problem’ with not playing Mikel Obi"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Head coach of the Super Eagles, Gernot Rohr, has insisted that there is no problem with not picking John Obi Mikel in his team.<\/p>\n

According to Rohr, Mikel Obi is important to the national team, whether or not he is on the pitch.<\/p>\n

The midfielder has not featured since he suffered a knee injury against Madagascar in the final Group B game.<\/p>\n

He is unlikely to return to the starting line-up vs Algeria, as Alex Iwobi is now ahead of him in the pecking order.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe coaching and playing career are similar, I tell them to enjoy the time they are players because it goes so quickly and what you will do after you stop football.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best moment is when you are a player and they have to enjoy this moment. Play as long as possible, I tell them we have Obi Mikel here with us.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if he is not starting the game, he is doing a good job as a captain, he\u2019s a guide for the young players.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of you believed, in Nigeria especially, that Obi Mikel coming back and not starting the games, we will have a problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no problem and we have two captains, Mikel and Ahmed Musa, who is also a very important African player,\u201d Rohr told reporters at Saturday\u2019s pre-match press conference.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Head coach of the Super Eagles, Gernot Rohr, has insisted that there is no problem with not picking John Obi Mikel in his team. According to Rohr, Mikel Obi is important to the national team, whether or not he is on the pitch. The midfielder has not featured since he suffered a knee injury against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":134766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/134766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}