Budding golden generation of Super Eagles players

The vast disparity between club football and country football cannot be overemphasized; one of the major differences in the likelihood of a club to be filled with quality players, bred from the club’s academy or being outrightly bought for huge sums in the summer or winter transfer windows as the case may be while the football teams of every country has to do with what they have with no chance of acquiring superstars as club sides do.

Occasionally though, a national team gets lucky and quality, world-class players from various club sides of the same nationality peaks at the same exact time. Among teams which have had quality players and can boast of world-class players even, the Brazil team of ’02 and ‘ 06 comes to mind (A team boasting of elite players in every position with Ballon d’Or recipients of Ronaldo de Lima, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, and Roberto Carlos, Adriano etc) and the French world-cup winning team of ’98 (Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry, David Trezeguet, Patrick Viera, Fabian Barthez, etc), a case can be made of the current Belgian team brimming with world-class talents of Kevin De Bruyne, Eden Hazard, Romelu Lukaku , and closer to the African continent, teams like the AFCON winning ’15 Cote d’Ivoire team boasting of elite players like Didier Drogba, Yaya Touré, Wilfred bony, Didier Zokora to name a few were on display.

The Super Eagles of Nigeria led by coach Gernot Rohr are the latest team slowly building that rare occurrence of elite players, a golden generation if it must be said to reclaim not only continental glory but challenge European and the rest of the world’s national footballing behemoths of the game.

Red-hot 20years old Lille striker Victor Osimhen leads the figuratively footballing hungry Nigerian pack with 9goals in as many games this season after sealing his switch from Belgian side Charleroi ( in which he bagged 20goals in 36games in his first season). After scoring recently against Frank Lampard’s exciting Chelsea side in the Uefa Champions League for his club Lille, he was praised by the English legend as quoted by Lille’s official twitter handle

“Osimhen was very impressive, it was a very difficult match for our defenders. He is fast and strong. I wish him a great career”.

Praise well deserved after being a figurative thorn in the Lampard-led Chelsea outfit all night long. A definite budding star to watch, one teetering on the edge of being termed “world-class”, an exciting, mouthwatering focal point of attack for a new-look Rohr-led Nigerian side vying to roar back to world footballing reckoning.

Other budding “golden generation” of Super Eagles of Nigeria players include 23-year-old ex-Arsenal and current Everton star Alex Iwobi who recently completed his £40m deadline day transfer from Arsenal to Everton, already scoring twice for his current club and being a marquee signing, is deservedly one of the first names on the Everton football club team sheet.

Next on the list is another 20years starlet, this time plying his trade in the Spanish LA Liga with Villarreal C. F by the name of Samuel Chukwueze, his left-footed, close control style of play regularly compared to Bayern Munich and Netherlands legend Arjen Robben.

Other young Nigerian footballers of burgeoning prominence in the game include Paul Onuachu, Henry Onyekwuru, Dennis Bonaventure (who recently scored a brace at the Santiago Bernabeu in the UEFA Champions League against 13time Champions League winners Real Madrid), Anthony Ujah, Joe Aribo etc. The list is lengthy and rapidly increasing, to say the least and while the coaching crew led by Gernot Rohr would be salivating in anticipation of these budding “golden generation”, the rest of Africa in particular and the footballing world in general ought to be excused for quaking in their boots in fear of this golden crop of Super Eagles stars.