Super Eagles defender describes winning 2013 AFCON as ‘highlight of his career’

Echiejile played in all the games, even scoring in the semi-finals as Nigeria went all the way to the final to win their third AFCON trophy.

For the left-back, that achievement remains the highlight of his career so far.

“It was the biggest moment of my life. Initially, when we won, we never knew how big it was. But after winning it and coming back to Nigeria, we knew it was huge. From the airport, people were crazy seeing us,” the defender said in an interview during a recent visit to .

“It was a good feeling for me and it was then I know that Nigerians are crazy about us.

Since that win, the Super Eagles of Nigeria have not qualified for any AFCON, missing out on the 2015 and 2017 edition.

The qualification for the 2019 edition has not started well either, with a shock 2-0 home loss to South Africa in Uyo on Saturday, June 10.

Echiejile played the whole 90 minutes in that game and admitted that the result was shocking.

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“We were so disappointed with the result but it's football, you have to expect times like this. It’s good it’s happening in the first game, so we have to go back, prepare harder and try to go to the Nations Cup,” the 29-year-old.

“I was personally disappointed that we didn’t have the positive result we wanted, the whole team, everybody was sad. It's football we learn from your mistake.”