Uzoho, Okoye transfers could be culmination of Rohr's Super Eagles project

In the same summer when striker Victor Osimhen appears set to join Serie A side Napoli for a fee in excess of €60 million, the most significant bit of Nigerian transfer activity may actually be at the other end of the pitch.

Within the space of a week, Francis Uzoho and Maduka Okoye inked permanent deals taking them to APOEL and Sparta Rotterdam respectively. In doing so, they may have finally provided Super Eagles coach Gernot Rohr with clarity on his biggest area of concern since he took charge in 2016.

By the sheer number of goalkeepers Rohr has cycled through in his time at the helm of the Nigeria national team, he has made no secret of his discomfort with his options. At the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, all three goalkeepers were used; perhaps he simply wanted everyone in the squad to get some time, but can anyone imagine depriving an established goalkeeper the opportunity to play in, say, a bronze medal match?

Increasingly, he has been forced into more and more unorthodox decisions: when Rohr first called up Uzoho, he had only recently come up from the reserves at Deportivo La Coruna; when Okoye was first called up (and indeed up until this summer), he was playing in the German fourth tier with Fortuna Dusseldorf II.

Those actions earned him no end of opprobrium for a large swathe of the local Nigerian press, who would rather have seen Rohr invest some effort into blooding a goalkeeper based in the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL). Quite who the preferred candidate was, beyond vague allusions to long-time local league squad representative Ikechukwu Ezenwa not being the "best in the NPFL" remains unclear.

In any case, Rohr will feel justified in his choices with this rash of transfer activity. Uzoho, who enjoyed a productive loan spell (before it was cut short by injury) last season with city rivals Omonia Nicosia, will get a chance at European competition with APOEL. The real triumph, however, is Okoye, who gets to play in the Eredivisie.

While he will face opposition from 28-year-old Benjamin Van Leer (signed from Ajax), the 20-year-old does have the edge of being a senior international (by virtue of his debut appearance against Brazil in 2019). That ought to stand him in good stead, and the understanding is that he will be a vital cog for Sparta going forward.

The direct impact of these movements within the context of the Nigeria national team is two-fold.

First of all: for the first time since perhaps Vincent Enyeama and Austin Ejide, the Super Eagles will now be able to count on genuine competition in the goalkeeper ranks.

The consequence of this is that Rohr's decision-making process immediately changes from picking the least worrisome (to illustrate his unease: he has, in the past, taken to sending his own goalkeeping coach to their clubs to train them) of the lot to selecting the best. The criteria are completely altered, and the forge of competitiveness will further harden both young goalies.

The second knock-on is a more holistic one, and is also a little more speculative.

One of the major criticisms Rohr has faced in his work with Nigeria is a seeming lack of ambition. This has been suggested in various ways, most pointedly in his approaches to matches (against Argentina and Algeria at the 2018 World Cup and 2019 Africa Cup of Nations respectively) and selections (insisting on an ultra-defensive double pivot, playing Chidozie Awaziem at right-back, saddling wingers with greater-than-normal defensive burdens).

The addition of Rangers' Joe Aribo to the national team has seen the shackles taken off to a degree, which suggests that perhaps Rohr's cautiousness so far has been more down to expediency than a lack of gumption.

One of the big lessons of Liverpool's recent success is that having the right defensive personnel can completely transform a team: the presence of Alisson and Virgil Van Dijk has freed up the Reds' full-backs – Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson – to fly forward at will.

Consider then how much bolder Rohr's side could be in the knowledge that the goalkeeper – far from a novice to be shielded at the expense of attacking expression – is a reliable component of the team in his own right, playing at a high level in his club career.

Indeed, in much the same way that Alisson was the final puzzle piece for Liverpool, the sorting of the previously uncertain goalkeeper position could be the making of the Super Eagles. The carefree attacking talent of Osimhen, Samuel Chukwueze, Alex Iwobi, Ola Aina and Samuel Kalu, for so long constrained by the (coach's) knowledge of his team's inherent fragility at the back, may finally be able to ride roughshod over opponents in a manner befitting their abilities.

If so, it is these two transfers, more than anything else, that will come to represent the culmination of the German's work.