Troost-Ekong prior to donning Nigeria’s jersey had played friendly matches for the Netherlands at U19 and U20 levels
By Kehinde Okeowo
Super Eagles captain, William Troost-Ekong has said late Nigeria’s head coach, Stephen Keshi convinced him to switch allegiance from the Netherlands to Nigeria.
He made the disclosure recently while speaking on the latest episode of The Sports Afterparty Podcast.
Troost-Ekong, who was born in Haarlem in the Netherlands, opted to play for Nigeria, where his father hails from instead of his country of birth.
This was despite the fact that that 31-year-old had played friendly matches for the Netherlands at U19 and U20 levels.
Addressing why he switched allegiance,
the former Watford star said he made the decision after a telephone conversation with Keshi, who was coaching the Super Eagles at the time.
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Troost-Ekong said, “I had the decision quite early in my career. I was 20 at the time, I just finished my breakthrough season in the Netherlands, first year of playing probably 30 plus games in the Eredivisie, which is the highest league in the Netherlands.
“And all of a sudden I got a phone call from Stephen Keshi, who was the coach at the time, ex-captain and ex-player, so I was quite blown away when he called me.
“Just at the start of the season, I had played for the Dutch U19 and U20 squads, but there was no real perspective yet for the first team.
“This was the only tangible option that I had. The choice was between trying to progress and later in my career maybe have a chance to play for the Netherlands or have a chance now to play for the Super Eagles who were kind of going through a transition stage where a lot of their defenders that time were a little bit older, so I knew that they wanted to make some changes there.
“And taking that opportunity which then in turn would give me more perspective for my club so I kind of made that decision thinking about all those things.”
