Nigeria and Chelsea midfielder Mikel Obi finally joined the Nigeria Olympic football team training camp in Atlanta, Georgia on Monday, the Nigeria Football Federation confirmed.
The Federation through their Twitter handle wrote on Monday, “John Mikel Obi joins Olympic Squad in the US.”
Norway-based defender William Troost-Ekong joined the team in camp on Sunday. Both the player and the federation announced his arrival also via Twitter.
Mikel’s arrival gives hope to the team after some other notables such as Kelechi Iheanacho, Odion Ighalo, Victor Moses and Alex Iwobi failed to accept the invitation to be at the Rio Olympics. Their clubs turned down Nigeria’s request to release the players for the age-grade event.
It will be Mikel’s first time at the Olympics after he turned down the opportunity to be at the Beijing 2008 Games squad, which was also incidentally managed by Samson Siasia.
Also on Monday and in the USA, the Nigeria men’s basketball team D’Tigers left Los Angeles for Houston where they will go through the final phase of their camping before embarking on the trip to Brazil. The players have been in the US camp since last month. They played two games against Argentina winning the first and losing the second. They defeated China before moving to the new base where they will play the USA in their final match before Rio.
