Nigeria national team head coach, Eric Chelle, has dropped Victor Boniface’s teammate at Bayer Leverkusen, Nathan Tella, from the Super Eagles squad ahead of the FIFA World Cup qualifying matches against Rwanda and Zimbabwe later in March.
Tella was an unused substitute as Bayer Leverkusen lost 2-0 at home to Bayern Munich and crash out of the UEFA Champions League at the round of 16 stage on Tuesday night.
The 25-year-old was unable to feature in that match because of an injury and will now be unable to play for Nigeria in the quest to turnaround their fortunes in the World Cup qualifying series.
Gent defender, Joshua Torunarigha, has been called up to replace the Bayer Leverkusen forward in a move that will give Chelle more options defensively as he now has four centre-backs to choose from.
Torunarigha previously represented Germany at youth level before switching allegiance to Nigeria in 2023 and earning a first cap in a 3-2 win over Mozambique in a friendly match last year. The 27-year-old has played 33 times for Gent this season in all competitions.