Joe Aribo: The Emergence of a Super Eagles Midfield Dynamo

Midfield powerhouses are rare in football, goalscoring box-to-box midfielders are even rarer, which makes the emergence of English born Nigerian international Joe Aribo even more exciting and after his recent performance against a star-studded Brazilian side, the growing fact that the Super Eagles of Nigeria might have simply struck gold by simply convincing the Camberwell, London born languid midfielder to switch allegiances to his native Nigeria has become more undeniable.

After the recent retirement of ex-chelsea and super eagles captain John obi Mikel, there obviously was a spot to be filled in the central midfield position and after midfielders like Israeli based John Ogu and injury ravaged Joel obi have flattered to deceive over the years in that position, there was a growing worry that the much coveted position would be a potential worrying one for Super eagles coach Gernot Rohr.

In came a largely unknown hair bobbing 23 years old Joel Aribo in place of rested Leicester’s Wilfred Ndidi alongside stoke city’s powerhouse Etebo against European side Ukraine and for a debut, the 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) Rangers midfielder put in a solid display that left Nigerian fans in awe and figuratively salivating for more appearances scoring his debut goal from an Alex Iwobi cross as early as the 4th minute, a perfect start to his international career.

Not since the days of diminutive legendary Nigerian number “10” Austin “Jay Jay” Okocha (The man so good he was named twice) has the Nigerian national team had a midfielder in the same mold with telling goalscoring contribution as the young baller Joe Aribo is shaping to be and even though it’s still early days, it’s hard not to get excited when an obviously talented player with special goalscoring talents materialise almost out of thin air.

He simply bossed possession whenever he got on the ball and never shied away from the battle, he mopped up the tension of the game from box to box, and his eye-catching goal capped off his display. To put his performances into even clearer perspective he covered lot of grounds just like the more established midfield partner Ndidi and his positional awareness helped in keeping Brazil at bay when they tried to play on the counter, his footwork was a constant joy to watch-his goal a testament to this fact, gliding through two selacao defenders to slot past Manchester city’s number 1 goalkeeper Ederson.

His recent performance has definitely earned him a regular spot in this Gernot Rohr led Nigerian side bubbling with youth, verve, physicality, hard work and passion, nevertheless the jury is still out to see if he can keep at this level and transform this recent performance to consistent goalscoring contributions, after all that it is common knowledge that all that ever separates good players from the greats is consistency and if this languid, silky, young Nigerian can maintain this level of consistency he could just write himself in the Nigerian footballing history books- not a bad proposition for a player who until some months ago was a relative unknown to football fans across this football-crazy West African nation.