Eric Chelle has lifted the lid on how he found two of Nigeria’s newest Super Eagles faces, Benjamin Fredrick and Olakunle Olusegun, Footynaija.com reports.
The national team manager explained that both players arrived in his plans through timing, observation and the right conversations during a busy period of player shortages.
The Brentford defender, currently on loan at Dender in Belgium, has already featured in at least five full matches for the Super Eagles, including outings against Rwanda, Lesotho, South Africa and Benin.
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According to a report by Legit.ng, Eric Chelle shared on Eagle7 103.7 Sports FM in Abeokuta that NFF president Ibrahim Gusau played a direct part in pointing him towards Fredrick, whose rise has been one of the standout stories of 2025.
“During the Unity Cup, the president of the NFF told me he knew there were problems with player availability, and he mentioned a player at Brentford, Benjamin Fredrick,” Chelle said.
“I told him I knew about him. He said Fredrick was here, so we brought him into the training session and he was so good. It looked like he had been part of the team for three years. He was a little nervous in his first week, but he is ready. He is always the first at appointments in camp, he listens, and he does what you ask.
“He can play centre-back or right-back because he plays at the right club level in Dender.”
The head coach of the Super Eagles then explained that the same situation applied to Olusegun, who is on loan at Pari Nizhny Novgorod from Krasnodar.
He received his first senior call-up earlier in the year when Nigeria prepared for the friendly against Russia. His invitation came at a time when other attackers were unavailable.
“For Olusegun, it was the same. When we were to play Russia, we had problems with players, so Olusegun was here at the best moment and in the right place because he plays in Russia,” the coach said.
“Like I did for Benjamin, I put Olusegun in my team after watching two or three of his games. His training sessions were good too. I gave him minutes, and he did well, the same as he did against Benin. So now he is in the team, and we will see what happens.”
