Scorecard: Boundary lines have fallen for Nigerian stars in pleasant places
After qualifying their fatherland for the AFCON, Nigerian top stars were alive to their responsibilities in their various clubs across the world.
Players who made their impact felt recently for Nigeria and those who were outside Gernot Rohr’s regiment recorded some outstanding showing with their clubs.
Top strikers, Paul Onuachu, Victor Osimhen, Kelechi Iheanacho are still in the news in Europe. Simy Nwankwo and Victor Moses also scored for their clubs at the weekend.
Crotone hit-man, Simeon Nwankwo, remains a solid rock in Serie A and doomed for a quick return to Serie B, but their Nigeria striker has been firing on all cylinders with his latest exploits being a brace at Napoli to take his tally this season to an impressive 15 goals.
He has proved beyond doubt that he can score goals whether in Serie B, where he made history as the first African to be crowned Goal King, or the Serie A.
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Osimhen was Man of the Match with a well-taken strike when the Super Eagles beat Lesotho 3-0 in a comfortable home win to conclude a successful qualifying campaign to the AFCON in Cameroon. He carried on this form back in Italy with his fourth goal in Serie A as Napoli bounced back to top reckoning with a 4-3 win over Crotone.
The Genk giant striker, Onuachu, used the AFCON qualifiers against Benin and Lesotho to underline his class for the national team after what he has so far achieved in Belgium, where he has scored 25 goals in the league. He was the match-winner in Benin before he fired a cracker to dump Lesotho in Lagos. He has now scored three goals in 10 appearances for Nigeria and a lot more will be expected of him as he shifts focus to rattling in more goals for his club.
Moses Simon was the leading Nigerian star in the French Ligue 1, but he could not prevent Nantes from a home defeat at the hands of Nice.
Simon went into the game fresh after missing the last international engagements as his club failed to release him due to Covid-19 restrictions.
While Simon struggled, Terem Moffi was impressive in another Ligue 1 match that featured a Nigerian. The 21-year-old set up Laurent Abergel as Lorient boosted their survival hopes with a 1-0 win over Brest.
Moffi has now scored eight times and registered three assists in 25 league games for Lorient. Meanwhile, Samuel Kalu was expectedly not in the Bordeaux squad that lost at home to Strasbourg.
The winger picked up an injury before the international break, which also ruled him out of the Super Eagles Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.
In England, Ola Aina and Josh Maja both featured for Fulham, but they were on the receiving end of a 3-1 defeat at Aston Villa.
Although he did not score at the weekend but good things surfaced for Iheanacho as he was voted the Premier League Player of the Month and his club, Leicester City renewed his contract till 2024 with more incentives.
Aina played the entire duration of the match, while Maja was a second-half substitute. Aleksandar Mitrovic put Fulham ahead in the 61st minute, but a brace from Trezeguet and Ollie Watkins turned the tie around for Villa.
In Germany, Taiwo Awoniyi was again missing as Union Berlin played out a 1-1 draw with city rivals Hertha Berlin at the Stadion An der Alten Försterei.
Awoniyi has now missed Union’s last six games due to a muscle injury.
Henry Onyekuru and Oghenekaro Etebo featured from the start for Galatasaray. Still, it was little known David Akintola, who powered ten-man Hatayspor to a comprehensive 3-0 victory at the Antakya Ataturk Stadium.
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Flying winger Akintola has been one of Hatayspor’s most productive stars this campaign, and the 21-year-old showed he could mix it well with the big boys when he set up Mame Biram Diouf for the game’s opener after just 21 minutes.
Ruben Ribeiro added another on the half-hour mark before Diouf bagged his brace in the second half as the home side struck a blow at Galatasaray’s title hopes.
Etebo, who scored in Nigeria’s 3-0 defeat of Lesotho on Tuesday, was on the pitch the entire duration of the game but couldn’t halt his side’s free fall.
His compatriot Onyekuru, on the other hand, was replaced in the 81st minute, moments after the referee reduced Hatayspor to ten men following the sending off of Strahil Popov.
The loss leaves second place Galatasaray three points behind Besiktas, with the league leaders playing two fewer matches.
Chelsea loanee, Victor Moses, returned to the starting XI for Spartak Moscow to record an important 3-2 win at Rostov and stay within striking distance of defending champions Zenit Saints Petersburg. He also scored his third goal in the Russian league. Will he make his loan move a permanent one at the end of the season? It will largely depend on him.
At the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg in South Africa, two out-of-favor Super Eagles stars were on parade as nine-man Kaizer Chiefs overcame Morocco’s Wydad Casablanca 1-0 to boost their chances of qualifying for the next round of the CAF Champions League.
Goalkeeper Daniel Akpeyi continued as Kaizer Chiefs number one while forgotten Nigerian international forward Michael Babatunde made the starting eleven for the Moroccan champions.
Akpeyi, snubbed for Nigeria’s final two Afcon qualifying games in March, lasted only 40 minutes as he was shown a red card for a professional foul.
The visitors also took off Babatunde and replaced him with Hamza Asrir at the break as they look to capitalise on their one-man advantage.
But it was the Amakhosi that broke the deadlock against the run of play shortly after the interval when Bernard Parker tapped home a simple finish.