Super Eagles striker, Brown Ideye has revealed that he struggles when he does not play alongside his strike partner in the national team, Emmanuel Emenike.
Ideye was poor at the 2013 Fifa Confederations Cup in Brazil where he was saddled with the responsibility of leading the line for the Super Eagles.
He badly fluffed his lines as Nigeria failed to advance past the preliminary stages in a group comprising Tahiti, Uruguay and Spain. The Dynamo Kyiv attacker has now revealed that his troubles asserting himself in Brazil was down to the absence of Emenike .
“Maybe if Emenike had played at the 2013 Confederations Cup, I would not have faced as quite as much pressure as I did. Since Emenike was not there, the other person people looked upon to perform was me,” Ideye told supersport.com. Ideye said the “pressure to perform” got to him and he failed to score a single goal in the tournament.
“When a lot of people put pressure on you to deliver and you don’t, you feel like you are the worst footballer on earth,’ he said. An angry Nigeria coach, Stephen Keshi declared afterwards that Emenike would not have missed the chances Ideye the other selected forwards missed during the tournament in Brazil and Ideye admits the gaffer was not out of line.
“He (Keshi) is right because Emenike has proved that he can do a lot in the national team. Maybe, if Emenike was in Brazil, I would not have been under too much pressure,” he said.
Ideye has scored five times in 23 appearances for Nigeria at senior level.