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Tag: Odion Ighalo

  • How I joined Manchester United on pay cut – Odion Ighalo

    How I joined Manchester United on pay cut – Odion Ighalo

    Former Super Eagles player Odion Ighalo has shared his incredible journey of joining dream club, Manchesters United.

    Ighalo, a lifelong Manchester United fan, recounted the moment his agent informed him of the club’s interest in an interview with a Nigerian player, Rasheedat Ajibade.

    According to him, he was willing to accept a pay cut to fulfill his dream of playing for Manchester United.

    The Nigerian striker anxiously waited to see if Manchester United would select him as their loan striker.

    He prayed fervently for the opportunity to play for the club.

    After a two-day wait, Ighalo’s agent informed him that Manchester United wanted to sign him.

    Ighalo said he was overwhelmed with emotion when he saw the offer from the club.

    Read Also: I never miss paying tithe since 2005 – Ighalo

    He partly said: “I went back to UK for premier league with Manchester United for one year, that day was a dream come true for me, because I’m a con Man United fan, I’ve been supporting ManU since I was small,so when that deal came, nothing anyone said was entering my ears.

    “I got a pay cut to go to Manchester United, but I didn’t care, I just told my agent to make the deal work, even if they don’t pay me, I just wanted to wear that Jersey as an Ex or current Man United player.

    “It was a dream when my agent called me that Man United wanted a striker on loan, because Marshal was injured,Rashford was injured and I asked what team and he said Manchester, I asked what are you waiting for?

     “He said they had 4 option for strikers and you’re the third option,I started praying against those other options, I prayed those options would not work, and that my opportunity to play for Manchester United must come to pass.

    “I prayed and prayed and after two days my agent called that they’d want to go for me because the other two are not working,I said ” ‘ Thank You God’. I still couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the offer they sent, the letter headed paper, Manchester United”.

  • Ighalo, Ekong clash in Saudi Arabia

    Ighalo, Ekong clash in Saudi Arabia

    Former Super Eagles attacker, Odion Ighalo will be up against Super Eagles captain William Troost-Ekong when their teams face off in the Saudi Pro League today.

    Ighalo is set to make his 20th league appearance of the season as Mecca-based Al Wehda travels to the 8,000-capacity Al-Hazem Club Stadium, seeking their first win in seven matches and a chance to escape the relegation zone.

    Meanwhile, Al Kholood looks to rebound from their 2-0 defeat to Al-Orobah FC on Valentine’s Day.

    Read Also: NFF unveils Éric Chelle as Super Eagles’ 37th coach

    It has been a challenging season for Ighalo, who has managed just four goals in 19 appearances and is currently enduring a five-game goal drought.

    However, the 35-year-old remains one of the Saudi Pro League’s most formidable strikers, having scored at least 12 goals in each of the last four seasons.

  • Bariga FC stun Odion Ighalo FC to win Maiden 1XBET Cup

    Bariga FC stun Odion Ighalo FC to win Maiden 1XBET Cup

    Bariga FC yesterday emerged champions of the inaugural 1XBET Community Football Tournament after defeating Odion Ighalo FC 2-0 in the final of the competition played at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena on Lagos Island.

    Two goals scored in each half of the pulsating final  by Babatunde Oladejo and Benjamin Friday,  ensured that the Bariga Boys walked out of the Onikan Waterfront with the N1million cheque and the gold plated giant trophy.

    Much-fancied Ighalo FC boys were opposite of the team fans saw in the confluence playoffs as well as in the quarter and semi-final. The boys suffered what their Captain, Inah Emmanuel  termed fatigue on the way to the final.

    Read Also: Lagos agog  for 1XBET Cup Final

    “I don’t want to give excuses for why we failed in the final. We just had a bad day in the office this evening,” observed the Ighalo FC captain.

    Earlier before the final, Young Strikers FC defeated De Elite FC 1-0 to win the consolatory third place match.

    The final match was the climax of the six-week long Zonal playoffs which started since October. It was pure grassroots football across five different communities in Lagos State. 

    Forty teams of non-league players started the journey with several of the players now pencilled for pro careers by some of the coaches and scouts that watched the final.

    Amongst the football personalities were  Friday Ekpo, Friday  Elahor,  Wasiu ipaye, Taiwo oloyede and former minister of state for defence Musiliu Obanikoro

  • Ighalo returns in Shenhua loss

    AFRICA Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2019 hotshot, Odion Ighalo returned to action for his Chinese team, Shanghai Shenhua but could do little as his side slumped to a 3-0 home defeat to Tianjin Teda.

    The 30-year-old striker was introduced in the 55th minute for Stephan El Shaarawy of Italy with Shanghai Shenhua already three goals down. The homers needed a saviour and the fans would have thought that the Nigerian striker would haul them back into the game.

    However, the Nigerian had the chance to make a goal-scoring return but he missed a penalty in the 64th minute after Haixin Li was brought down in the 18 yard box. Ighalo also had two shots off target as he tried to make up for his penalty miss; while Tianjin Teda goals were scored by Frank Acheampong (12min), Sandro Wagner (21min) and Zheng Kaimu (51 min).

    Despite being on the losing side  in his first game after two-month injury lay-off, Ighalo remains giddy with happiness in a series of post on one of his social media accounts saying :“Once has the Lord spoken and twice have I heard that all powers in Heaven and earth belongs to him ; the battle is of the Lord.”

    Read Also: Ighalo revenge

    Pressed by The Nation Sport on his return to action, an excited Ighalo posited further: “I missed football, feels so good to be back after two months .”

    It would be recalled that  the Nigerian striker copped a hamstring injury on  17th July when the Super Eagles played Tunisia in the bronze medal game of the AFCON and had been out of action  for 60 days missing seven games in the Chinese Super League.

    The forward had remarkably scored seven goals in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualification campaign, the most by any player, to help Nigeria qualify for the finals for the first time since 2013. He was included in Gernot Rohr’s squad, taking part in all the matches and finding the net once  against Burundi in the group phase (1–0); a brace against Cameroon in the round of 16 (3–2 win), as well as a goal each against Algeria in the  1-2 semi-finals loss and  in the 1-0 win against Tunisia in the third-place playoff. At the end of the competition, he announced his retirement from the international football.

  • Ighalo close to full fitness

    Former Super Eagles’ forward, Odion Jude Ighalo has revealed that he is just 14 days away from returning to full training with his club after making steady improvement on the injury he suffered last month in Egypt, AOIFootball.com reports.

    The former Watford striker suffered the injury during Nigeria’s 1-0 AFCON 2019 bronze medal win against Tunisia, which has forced him out of action for the last month. The 30-year-old is, however, close to return to action after stating that he has already started doing light works off the field of play.

    “I’ve made good progress on the injury as I started running outside and doing ball work, so hopefully in two weeks, I will begin full training with the rest of the squad,” Ighalo revealed.

    Read Also: Ighalo’s retirement premature — Disu

    Ighalo would, however, be eager to return to action following an eventful last eight months, which had seen him twice finish as the best scorer on the continent and also beginning his Shanghai Shenhua career on a bang with seven goals in his opening nine matches.

    With the Chinese Super League now taking a one month break, the talismanic forward will almost certainly, be in line to make a return against Tianjin TEDA next month when the league restarts.

  • Nations Cup goal king Odion  Ighalo re-considering retirement.

     

    Egypt 2019 Nations Cup highest goal scorer Odion Ighalo is having a re-think over his recent retirement from international football.

    The Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua, forward who currently nursing injury sustained at the Continental Fiesta which ended 12 days ago gave the hint Wednesday when he dished out a message on social media with his pictures in national colors with the caption “Coming back stronger” Some of his fans immediately summed up the tweet to mean possible return to the national team as backing the tweet up with photos in club colors would have sent a different message.

    Ighalo’s retirement announcement, immediately after Nigeria’s third place match against Tunisia, seized the headlines just like that of Victor Moses did after Super Eagles unimpressive show at the last World cup in Russia.

    Opinions of analyst, stakeholders and fans alike remain divided with some saying that both players at 28 and 30 respectively were hitting the exit door too early while others insist they have a right to bow out when they choose adding that it is better to quit when a player still has enough to offer his club on one hand and venture into other things that can last the distance on the other.

    Ighalo who scored a total of 16 goals in his 35 appearances for the Super Eagles was a major hit for Chinese side Changchun Yatai where he emerged highest goal scorer netting 36 goals in 55 appearances.  He has so far scored seven goals in nine appearances for Shanghai Shenhua this year.

    The club fillers from China indicate, are eager to have him re-enact his 36 goals feat while with Changchun Yatai, and did not hesitate to express disappointment after it was reported he had suffered injury while on national assignment.

    Coach of the club Choi Kang-Hee, is however said to be optimistic that the Nigerian will pick up from where he stopped on return from injury.

    Ighalo scored five out of the 102 goals scored at the Nations cup in Egypt thus emerging the highest goal scorer with Algeria’s duo of Riyad Mahrez and Adam Ounas, DR Congo’s Cédric Bakambu and Senegal’s Sadio Mané all tied on three goals each.

  • Ighalo revenge

    Odion Jude Ighalo, the 2019 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) goalador, appears to have got his revenge, against rude Nigerian ball fans, who love to hate him, even if he kills himself playing for this motherland.

    Ighalo, the supreme goal poacher, just announced his entry into the AFCON record books by emerging the highest scorer, in the just concluded championship in Egypt with five goals.  That was a big deal, in a competition that involves big names like Egypt’s Mo Sallah, Senegal’s Sadio Mane and Algeria’s Riyad Mahrez.  He beat them all to the Golden Boot.

    Besides, even a bigger deal: with the great Rashidi Yekinni, he is sharing the record of banging in five goals as top scorer.  Ay, Yekinni in 1994, went in to help propel Nigerian as African champions for the second time.  Well, Ighalo could only help get an umpteenth bronze, which unlike old times, doesn’t  really appear golden again.

    Even then, Ighalo proved his mettle: his seven goals helped Nigeria scale the qualifiers, even after the opening loss to South Africa, at the back yard of Uyo.  Also, his five goals propelled Nigeria to bronze at the championship proper, even if he didn’t fully play every match, as Yekinni did.

    Indeed, in the opening and third place matches, Ighalo only played 45 minutes or less.  In the opener, he came in a substitute to bury the winner against Burundi, during  the remaining 25 minutes of the match that he played.  In the third place match, it was within three minutes that he struck, and quit, no thanks to injury, at half time.

    Also, in the World Cup qualifiers, Ighalo’s goals buried Cameroon, a feat he repeated with his brace against the Indomitable Lions in Egypt.

    Read Also: Ighalo retires from Super Eagles

    Moral?  Ighalo had always proved his mettle, any time he put on the green-white-green.  Yet, each time he made a mistake — as he did at the World Cup in France against Argentina — fans tear at him as if he is the most useless member of the squad.

    Well, Ighalo is having his revenge — threatening retirement; being begged to stay on, and playing coy, whichever way!

    It’s great Ighalo is keeping his traducers quiet for once.  But his odyssey is only another manifestation of the bad socialization of contemporary Nigerians to public officials.  They gripe and howl and scream and abuse and curse and threaten — just because a fellow citizen is putting his or her talent at the service of the common good.

    That is a bad piece of socialization contemporary Nigeria must shun.  Else, many a good talent would flee the public space.  Nigeria can only be the loser.

     

  • Ighalo, Balogun, Collins back in China, England

    After helping the country to win an unprecedented eight Africa Cup of Nations bronze medal, Super Eagles trio of Odion Ighalo, Jamilu Collins and Leon Balogun are the first set of players to depart the team’s camp in Egypt to their various clubs, AOIFootball.com can authoritatively confirm.

    Ighalo, who secured the bronze medal with a composed poke in just three minutes into the tie with Tunisia, will depart for China hoping that the injury he suffered would not be too serious to rule him out for a long period.

    The 30-year-old was already scheduled to return to Shenhua but pulled up a muscle during the closing stages of the first half of the third place game and would now go for further tests to determine the extent of the injury.

    Read Also: Ighalo retires from Super Eagles

    Brighton defender Leon Balogun has also departed the team’s Le Meridien Cairo Airport Hotel.

    Similarly, Mikel will also fly back to England before heading to Turkey where he is expected to meet with his new employers after signing a deal during the AFCON with Trabzonspor.

    Left-back Jamilu Collins who remains a target of top European clubs also returned to Germany with the recently promoted Bundesliga side as the players begin to switch attention to the new European campaign.

  • UPDATED: AFCON 2019: Super Eagles clinch bronze

    Odion Ighalo scored the only goal as Nigeria beat Tunisia in the third-place play-off at the Africa Cup of Nations.

    Ighalo, the tournament’s top scorer with five goals, tapped in after keeper Moez Ben Cherifia deflected the ball off his own defender Yassine Meriah.

    In a slow-paced game between the two losing semi-finalists in Cairo, Tunisia went close as Ferjani Sassi and Ghaylene Chaalali shot wide.

    Read Also: Breaking: Senegal reach AFCON 2019 final

    Three-time winners Nigeria have now finished third eight times.

    Tunisia, champions in 2004, needed a finger-tip save from Cherifia to deny Samuel Chukwueze in the second half and the keeper was called on again injury time to acrobatically save Samuel Kalu’s free-kick.

    Senegal will look for their first Afcon title when they face 1990 winners face Algeria in Friday’s final.

    BBCSports

  • Nigeria Fans Told to Apologise to Ighalo for W/Cup Insults

    It was haul of insults on Odion Ighalo and his family members after Nigeria crashed in Russia at the 2018 FIFA World Cup from some overzealous football fans.

    The fans have however been told to withdraw the rain of insults on the Super Eagles striker who is now on a national assignment with the team at the ongoing Africa Nations Cup in Egypt.

    Foremost Nigerian singer, rapper, actor and politician – Olubankole Wellington, popularly known by his stage name (Banky W) on Saturday made the appeal and urged the fans to delete every tweets sent to the striker for his missed chances in the crucial game against Argentina at the tournament.

    “Ighalo had a MASSIVE game today(Saturday) MY GOODNESS!!!! All the people that were insulting him and his family after the world cup, please go and delete your tweets… the man is a KING!!!!! Nigeria we move!,” he wrote @Banky W.

    Ighalo has been adjudged one of the stellar performers for Nigeria at the ongoing tournament with three goals in his kitty and a Man of the Match award in the Nigeria/Cameroon encounter.

    His resurgence has so far renewed Nigerians fancy for the striker whose wife unfortunately would not want to remember how she was insulted on Instagram after Nigeria crashed out of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

    Recall that Lionel Messi opened the scoring in the game but Victor Moses equalised from the penalty spot, before a Marcus Rojo strike in the 85th minute sent the Super Eagles out of the World Cup.

    Read Also: Ighalo hopes to have successful tournament

    Before the late goal by Argentina, many Nigerians faulted striker Odion Ighalo for missing two clear chances to put the Super Eagles ahead. Ighalo takes responsibility for  the defeat and apologised as reported in the media after the game.

    He said, ”I apologise to Nigeria. I apologise to my team mates. I take responsibility for this game because I had taken those chances I had that would have made it a different ball game now. But that is football and life has to continue.

    “It’s a sad day for me, the boys and the country because we went out in a bad manner and we deserved more in the game.

    “We had a penalty in the game and another one which the referee did not give. I missed a couple of chances that would have finished the game but that’s football because sometimes you win and sometimes to lose.”

    Meanwhile, a sport journalist who would not want to be named has advised that Nigerians should not excessively heap praises on the Super Eagles as their are tougher tasks ahead if Nigeria would lift its fourth Nations Cup this year.

    “Life is about ups and downs.When you do well people will praise you and when you do not live up to expectation people will bash you. And that is the game of football, and Ighalo has experienced the two sides.

    I will advised that the team should not be distracted as South Africa on Wednesday at the quarter-final stage of  Nations Cup going on in Egypt is a crunch tie,” he said.