COACH Sunday Oliseh has said that only players who are ready to make sacrifice for the country will feature for the country in the AFCON 2017 qualifiers crucial ties against The Pharaohs of Egypt, with the first leg coming up on March 25 at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium in Kaduna.

While speaking on a radio programme yesterday, Oliseh also disclosed that he is facing financial difficulty, as he needs to meet the foreign-based players one-on-one so as to be able to assess players who are ready for the matches.

Also giving his assessment on how best he can use Mikel Obi, he said he would prefer to play the Chelsea midfielder in a defensive position, like Chelsea do, rather than giving him a free and offensive role in the middle.

Oliseh’s predecessor Stephen Keshi played the Chelsea star mostly as a free player in the engine and this freed him to join the attack more often.

It was also the same role he played when he broke out internationally under coach Samson Siasia at the 2005 FIFA U20 World Cup in the Netherlands.

However, Oliseh has now said Mikel’s forte is a central defensive midfielder.

“My personal opinion is that he should be given a more central defensive role, like (Guus) Hiddink is using him. He should be the umbrella for the two central defenders,” Oliseh said on a radio interview yesterday.

“With the national team, it’s not what you want that matters, it is what will bring us results.

“If you don’t want to do that, I will play players who want to help us, like I did against Swaziland.”

In October, Oliseh dropped Mikel to the bench for all 90 minutes when the Eagles hosted Swaziland in a 2018 World Cup qualifier in Port Harcourt.