As part of preparations for the AFCON tournament which was to be hosted by Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria played against Guinea in a Pre-AFCON friendly which featured Real Sociedad striker, Umar Sadiq and this is the story behind the whole saga.
(Govima Sport Reports) with credit to SportDokita via Twitter for the full story.
Sadiq Umar was part of the team as the Super Eagles prepare for the AFCON tournament and During the friendly match against Guinea, Sadiq had a knock and the Nigerian medical team recommended an immediate substitution but Sadiq insisted that he was fine and saw out the match.
During the press conference, Sadiq said he had a “small knock” and should be fine but as required, he had to be assessed by the Nigerian Medical Team.
This is where things got messy!!!
The Nigerian Medical Team assessed him the next day and said Sadiq had suffered a MENISCAL INJURY and ruled him out for at least 15 days.
The National team reported this back to his club, Real Sociedad that insisted on their player coming back for further assessment and possibly rehabilitation, and with that a “RELUCTANT” Umar Sadiq left the Super Eagles camp returning to Spain.
Umar got to Spain and when he was assessed by the Real Sociedad medical team, they said he had just a bruise was fine.
To make it more intriguing, he started training with the team just after 3 days of returning from the Super Eagles camp, and he went on to play 17 minutes of their game against Osasuna the following match day and was totally fine!
He likewise helped Real Sociedad progress into the semi-final of the Copa Del Rey last night in a 2:1 win for his club. Sadiq played about 20 minutes as his team set up a meeting with Atletico Madrid.
The question remain, what actually went wrong? With the Nigerian Medical Team that gave the assessment.
