Emmanuel Dennis
An interview
with the Watford
media team also
aired around
that time, in
which Dennis
seemed to
suggest the
national team
was not on his
mind. This gave
further credence
to the notion he
was not overly
bothered about
playing for
Nigeria, and so
fuelled a barrage
of news articles
and hot takes
on social media.
The entire episode, and the coverage
of it, is an obvious point of annoyance
for Dennis. “You see, Nigerian bloggers- some of them – they don’t know
anything. That [video] was not the full
story. The guy didn’t post the full video.
“I did an interview with the club,
in Watford, and the guy asked me
about [my] form: ‘You’re playing good,
the national team – is it something in
your head, like you’re thinking about
it?’ You cannot be in the club thinking
about your national team, just like I
cannot be in the national team thinking
about a game in Watford. No! I have
to think about the game here first.
“He asked me, and then I said
something like: ‘It’s not in my head,but obviously if they call me I’ll go, of
course. If they don’t call me, I’m not
going to do anything.’ That’s what I said.
But the guy didn’t post the whole video.
He just edited the video and posted only
when I said: ‘No, it’s not in my mind.’
“Things like this, they don’t bother
me. I don’t care. Things don’t get to me.
I don’t know why these things affect
people. Maybe because I grew up in a
barracks, so the orientation is different.
I’ve always been like this: I don’t care
about these hate messages and stuff.
But I’m just saying this just to clarify to
the people that have been deceived
about me. That’s the reason I’m
speaking about this situation.
“One thing I’ll tell people is this: you
don’t know people. You don’t know any
football player. You only know what’s
been said about them in the paper,
or in the news. And these things make
people think that they know the football
player.Butyou’redeceiving yourself.”
Dennis’ strong desire to play for
Nigeria at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar
was extinguished after an away goals
play-off defeat to bitter rivals Ghana at
the end of March.
Disappointed
and broken to see
the dream of a
first appearance
on the global
stage fade away,
he has quickly
switched his attention to the 2023
AFCONinIvoryCoast.
“It was really sad to lose the World
Cup ticket. It wasn’t our day and it really
affected me because we wanted to give
so much to our country and fans,” he
added.
“The Nations Cup next year is an
opportunity for us to atone for this.
We need to first qualify and try to give
our fans something to cheer about.”come in time.’ And then I said: ‘Look,
I want to go but I don’t want to make
problems. I’m known for making
problems, so I don’t want to
make another problem.’
“Because, you see on Twitter, a lot
of Nigerians were like: ‘He’s arrogant, he
has too much ego.’ Some of them come
and point out: ‘He had problems at Club
Brugge. He had problems in Germany.’
These are the people that I want to fight
my team to come play for, and they
were already mocking me on social
media. I didn’t want to have problems
again in England, so I just respected
what the club said.
“The letter did not come at the right
time, but the club could not really stop
me because it was a FIFA period. So,
the whole time I was speaking to the
coach, [Augustine] Eguavoen. I asked
him: ‘Can you push the NFF people?’
My club don’t have the right to say no
when it’s the right time, when it’s the
FIFA [window]. If the club has the power
to say no, it means that there’s something
that is wrong, you see?”
It is evidently an episode that
still agitates the forward, and he is
determined to set the record straight.
“I was also a little bit injured, to be
honest. I missed, I think, at least two
games. So, I went to Belgium to meet
my doctor. I was there for like a week.
I can show you proof on my phone.
I’ll show you, and then you will see
the dates. I was injured. I had to go
to Belgium to have treatment with my
doctor. You can see the date. This was
likeJanuary 4.” At this point in the
interview, Dennis takes out his phone
to reveal photos of his treatment
in Belgium. “I was not in England.
I was injured. I travelled.
“But then, it was a perfect moment
for all the Nigerian bloggers to make
astory.”
Headline maker...
Dennis scoring his
second goal at the
Bernabeu in 2019“I’ve always come to the national team whenever
they invite me...that’s every child’s dream, to play
for the Super Eagles. No one’s going to say no
to representing his country. Impossible”Bundesliga stint...
Dennis vies for the
ball with Bayern’s
Alphonso Davies