Brentford midfield player Frank Onyeka has been named in the Nigeria squad for two upcoming matches. Nigeria will start their qualification campaign for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations this week. They face Sierra Leone on Thursday, 9 June, and then São Tomé and Príncipe next Monday, 13 June, in their first two matches.

They are in qualification Group A with Guinea-Bissau as the fourth team. They will play each side home and away in the next nine months. The top two will reach the tournament, to be held in Côte d’Ivoire in the summer of 2023.

Frank will join up with his national team in ahead of the match with Sierra Leone. Nigeria played two friendlies last week, losing to Mexico and Ecuador. Frank has not played for Brentford since March due to an ankle injury and missed those two friendly internationals. He is now fit again and has been brought in to the group.

Frank has seven caps for Nigeria. He played for his country in in the Africa Cup of Nations at the start of the year. Nigeria were knocked out of the tournament, held in Cameroon and won by Senegal, in the Second Round stage by Tunisia. He was also part of the Nigeria team that lost a Play-Off against Ghana for a place in the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which will be held in Qatar at the end of the year.

Frank has earned six of his seven caps since he joined Brentford last summer. When he played for Nigeria last October, Frank became the 50th Brentford player to have won a full international cap while on our books and is in a very select group to have played in an international tournament. Only two others – Kamohelo Mokotjo, of South Africa, and Julian Jeanvier for Guinea – have played in the Africa Cup of Nations while Frank is also on a list that includes Mathias Jensen, Christian Nørgaard, Henrik Dalsgaard, Marcus Forss and Halil DerviÅŸoÄŸlu, to have appeared in an international tournament.