Ahead of Nigeria’s last Group C match this Tuesday evening at the ongoing 2025 AFCON in Morocco, Ugandan forward Uche Ikpeazu has said his focus was firmly on helping the Cranes defeat the Super Eagles at the tournament despite his Nigerian heritage.
Ikpeazu, who scored in Uganda’s previous group match, said the goal kept the team’s qualification hopes alive but stressed that winning remained the priority.
“Yeah, I’m obviously happy. It keeps us, our dreams alive of qualifying out of the group, so I’m happy about that,” he said. “But obviously you want to win the game, so if I could win the game and not score, that would have been my preference.”
Looking ahead to the clash against Nigeria, he added, “But listen, I’ve scored and we all know that we have to do the business tomorrow (Tuesday) against Nigeria.”
The Nigerian-born striker acknowledged an emotional connection to Nigeria through his father but he made it clear where his loyalty lies.
“Well, I’m half Nigerian. That’s where my dad’s from. So, of course, there’s going to be an emotional attachment. It’s always going to be that, but I have an emotional attachment to Uganda as well. And I play for Uganda, so I’ll be hoping to beat Nigeria. So, dad, I’m sorry,” Ikpeazu said.
On the possibility of scoring against Nigeria, Ikpeazu said, “You know, in football, sometimes your emotions get the better of you. So, I don’t know. I’ll see how it goes. But I don’t have any planned celebrations or anything like that. But if I scored, that’d be wonderful. But yeah, the most important thing is to get the three points.”
Ikpeazu also described his AFCON experience as special, particularly after spending almost a year out of action with injuring last season.
“It’s amazing. Considering last season, I was out for almost a year and I had to work extremely hard to get back, so to play in the Africa Cup of Nations has always been a dream of mine.”
“But I have a lot of desire to progress through the next round. I don’t want the journey to finish; I feel like it’s just getting started,” Ikpeazu added.
Tuesday’s Group C stage match between Uganda and Nigeria promises to be closely contested, with the former fighting for crucial points to secure a place in the knockout stages of AFCON 2025.
LEADERSHIP reports that Nigeria already qualified to the next stage, having amassed six points from the previous two games of the group.
