Super Eagles manager Gernot Rohr has underlined that the performance of Galatasaray center-back Valentine Ozornwafor was the most eye-catching during his side's goalless draw against Cameroon on Tuesday evening.

The former Flying Eagles star came into the starting lineup for the first time in his senior career after Watford's William Troost-Ekong withdrew from squad due to the injury he sustained last Friday.

Many Super Eagles fans and pundits had objected to the invitation of Ozornwafor on the grounds that the left-footed central defender struggled for minutes at his club in the recently concluded season, logging only eight minutes throughout the campaign.

The 22-year-old was the star of the show against the Indomitable Lions, helping goalkeeper Maduka Okoye keep a clean-sheet, something the Super Eagles were not able to do in the first friendly last week.

Speaking to the Super Eagles Media Team shortly after the game, Rohr said : "We had a problem to build the defence, so we played for the first time with Valentine (Ozornwafor) and he did very well and we finished the match with Moses Simon, who is a winger, on the the left-back position, and we didn't concede a goal.

"I'm very happy for Valentine, a lot of people did not understand why he was with us, he showed today the reasons why he can play with us.

"He did very well with his left foot in central defence and the result is not the most important in these friendlies, the most important is to test some players, to see some new faces, what was the case again today."

Ozornwafor was a key member of the Flying Eagles squad to the 2019 FIFA U20 World Cup in Poland, starting their first two games against Qatar and United States, before an injury ruled him out of the rest of the tournament.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel