The Super Eagles' Maduka Okoye, has expressed his sadness following his goalkeeping error that cost Nigeria at AFCON.
In 2019, Okoye made his Super Eagles debut and quickly established himself as the starting goalkeeper for the team.
The Udinese star was the Super Eagles' goalkeeper during the 2020 AFCON tournament where they reached the round of 16.
However, Okoye’s mistake in the round of 16 against Tunisia led to the Super Eagles' elimination from the tournament.
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Okoye on AFCON mistake
Okoye has spoken about his mistake at the AFCON and claims he regrets the error he made leading to the Super Eagles' elimination.
The Udinese man failed to save a shot from Youssef Msakni which went in, leading to the only goal of the game.
In a YouTube interview with Oma, Okoye said, “At that moment, I told myself I should have done better. It pains me till today, to be honest,”
“You could see it was a mistake because I had to keep the ball out of the goal. If I want to play at Inter Milan, then I have to do better in such situations.
“I’ve been training hard, improving in the last two years because I don’t want things like that to happen again.
“Mistakes happen, last week, Manuel Neuer, who is one of the best made a mistake. It’s part of the game, and it was hard for me as a young boy to go through it after it happened.
“I’m not just talking about what I read on social media, it’s more about the feeling of letting your teammates down, your family down, and letting your country down.
“At this stage, I’m not even reading the nonsense on social media anymore. Some people still talk badly about Cristiano Ronaldo despite his achievements.
“People will always say something bad about you. I know myself that I didn’t do good in that situation, and I know that I let my teammates and my country down in that situation.
“And I’m still to this day unhappy and sad about it, and I wish I could do differently, but it happened and I learned from my mistake.”
Okoye returned to the Super Eagles team after being called up for the World Cup qualifiers against South Africa and Benin Republic.