Super Eagles: 3 uncapped stars who could debut in Osimhen’s absence

Super Eagles head coach Eric Chelle has been handed a reason to open the door to fresh senior faces after Victor Osimhen sustained an injury, Afrik-Foot reports.

The 27-year-old was forced off against Basaksehir, playing just 33 minutes, and the club’s official social media page has confirmed that the former Napoli striker suffered strain and pain in the right adductor muscle.

Osimhen joins a wider Super Eagles doubt list that already includes Zaidu Sanusi, Yira Sor, Raphael Onyedika, Fisayo Dele-Bashiru and Semi Ajayi.

Chelle has publicly indicated he’s open to welcoming new faces for this window, and Osimhen’s absence has sharpened the case for three specific uncapped attackers whose 2026/27 form is genuinely impossible to overlook.

3 uncapped stars who could debut for the Super Eagles

1. George Ilenikhena

Al-Ittihad’s George Ilenikhena, a Lagos-born attacker who joined the Saudi Pro League champions from AS Monaco in February, has been on Chelle’s radar for months.

The Franco-Nigerian is uncapped at senior international football and remains fully eligible for the Super Eagles through his Lagos birth.

His CV already includes the winning goal against FC Barcelona on Monaco’s 2024/25 Champions League return, a strike that broke Kylian Mbappé’s record for the youngest striker to score in the competition for a Monaco side.

The Al-Ittihad move made him the most expensive Nigerian teenager in transfer history.

At 1.85m tall, left-footed and quick, Ilenikhena brings the mobile centre-forward profile Nigeria’s attack needs in Osimhen’s absence.

2. Gift Orban

Amedspor striker Gift Orban was first called up to the Nigeria squad by Jose Peseiro in September 2023 alongside Victor Boniface for the qualifier against Sao Tome and Principe, but a training-ground injury before the fixture cost him the debut Boniface made that day.

Three years later, Orban remains uncapped at senior and youth international level for Nigeria.

The Benue-born forward’s post-Gent journey has taken in unsuccessful stops at Lyon and Hoffenheim, a 2025/26 season on loan at Hellas Verona in which he scored seven goals and provided two assists in 29 Serie A appearances despite Verona’s eventual relegation, and a fresh reset at newly promoted Amedspor on a season-long loan with an option to buy.

What the moves have in common is that the underlying goal-scoring instinct that once produced the fastest hat-trick in UEFA club competition history at Gent in 2023 has not disappeared.

Orban came off the bench to score Amedspor’s 90th-minute winner over Trabzonspor, cancelling out Mo Salah’s opener after Yira Sor had scored the equaliser.

If Orban converts that opportunity into a run of goals before the International break, ignoring him for the AFCON qualifiers becomes considerably harder.

3. Moses Usor

LASK attacker Moses Usor is a 24-year-old Lagos-born forward who has found his groove in the Austrian Bundesliga.

He’s versatile and can play as a winger and a centre-forward. Usor scored 13 Bundesliga goals in 30 appearances last season.

The 2026/27 season has picked up where he left off. Usor has already scored three goals and provided four assists in his opening eight matches.

Osimhen’s absence could widen Chelle’s pool

The Super Eagles have missed out on the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and are entering an AFCON 2027 qualifying group with a point to prove without the striker their attacking identity has been built around.

Every one of those conditions individually strengthens the case for handing debuts to the three players above.

Combined, they leave Chelle with no defensible reason to keep Ilenikhena, Orban or Usor waiting through another window.

Two of the three are natural strikers who can be trusted to lead the line, and the third is an in-form wide attacker who addresses the Sor-shaped gap on the flanks.