Stanley Nwabali is not thinking about the Super Eagles at the moment. The goalkeeper says his attention is on rebuilding his career at South African side Chippa United, the club he has just returned to after six months out of competitive football.
Nwabali, 30, has already featured in three PSL matches since coming back to Chippa. He left the club after Nigeria’s 2025 AFCON campaign in Morocco and spent several months sidelined before a renewed relationship with club chairman Siviwe Mpengesi opened the door back to the team he once played for.
“I’m only focused on helping my club pick up as many points as possible. So for now I’m not too worried about the National team,” Nwabali said. On the move back to Chippa, he added: “Coming back to this club feels like I’m coming back to my family and my home, and I’m really happy to be back on the pitch.”
That is a striking shift for a goalkeeper who started the 2023 AFCON final for Nigeria, the tournament where the Super Eagles reached the final before finishing as runners-up. His absence since has opened space for other goalkeepers, including Maduka Okoye and Arthur Okonkwo, to press their own case for the national team’s gloves.
I think what stands out here is the honesty of it. Plenty of players in Nwabali’s position would default to saying all the right things about wanting the national jersey back. Instead, he’s naming the actual order of operations: club form first, everything else after. It’s a smaller headline than a comeback declaration would have been, but probably a more accurate one.
Nwabali still has competition to work through at club level too. Chippa United goalkeeper Dumisani Msibi remains part of the picture, meaning Nwabali’s route back to regular starts, let alone a national team recall, runs through his own dressing room before it runs through anywhere else.
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For now, the message from the player himself is straightforward: performances at Chippa will decide what happens next, and the Super Eagles conversation can wait.
