October 03, (THEWILL) – Ahead of the imminent international break for match days three and four of Nigeria’s Qatar 2022 World Cup qualifiers in the Confederation of African Football CAF region, Nigeria’s best front two, Napoli’s Victor Osimhen and Racing Genk’s Paul Onuachu, have topped scoring charts in European football to demonstrate their readiness to shine in the Green and White of the Super Eagles’ attack formation.
The sterling displays of the pair in the 2021/2022 season for their clubs, which has largely been a continuation of the immense season they both had, prior to this, did not go unnoticed by the technical staff and crew of the senior men’s national football team. They have been selected in a cast of six strikers to prosecute the country’s qualifier challenge in the double-header fixture against the Central African Republic, as THEWILL reported.
Of the six forwards, comprising Turkey-based Ahmed Musa of Fatih Karagumruk, France Ligue 1 duo of Samuel Kalu from FC Bordeaux and Moses Simon of FC Nantes, Chidera Ejuke in the Russian top flight with CSKA Moscow, Osimhen and Onuachu, to conclude that the gulf in quality between Osimhen and Onuachu, on the one hand and the remaining four, on the other, is to state the blinding obvious, especially when their statistical outputs are juxtaposed with particular attention to the quality of the opposing defences and the competitions they have consistently excelled in.
For 22-year-old Osimhen, who has had his first truly solid preseason in Italy and who has been allowed to deliver as his quality demonstrates what he is capable of, the striker has taken full advantage of the opportunity to excel. His high premium display this season has worked to keep Napoli on top of the Serie A such that the Nigerian became the joint-top scorer in Europe’s top five leagues in the month of September, on par with Real Madrid’s blazing hot Karim Benzema, after he found the back of the net yet again in Napoli’s match against Cagliari on Sunday, September 26.
Osimhen scored his sixth goal this season in the 11th minute, with his teammate Piotr Zieliński providing the assist once again. And, as he has done since returning from the international break, where he scored for Nigeria against Cape Verde, he terrorised the Cagliari defenders all through his 77 minutes of play. After another of his swift intrusions into the danger area again threatened to punish the visitors even further, Diego Godin had no other way to cope with Osimhen’s pace and physicality than to bring him down in the box leaving referee Marco Piccinini no choice but to award a penalty.
It simply was another Osimhen-inspired victory because Lorenzo Insigne buried the spot-kick allowing the hosts take a comfortable 2-0 win jump back to the summit of the league’s standings and maintain their perfect start to the 2021/2022 campaign in Italy. With the industry of the Nigerian, only the star-studded Paris Saint-Germain side in Ligue 1 have managed to maintain a similar winning start in all of Europe’s top five leagues, even though PSG has played eight matches so far compared to the six games played in the Italian top division of Serie A.
It has been Osimhen’s major responsibility to see to the goals that have kept his side ticking and making sure to match a previous record of Napoli’s for the Luciano Spalletti-led squad. The victories this season have made it the second time that the I Partenopei have won each of their first six Serie A seasonal matches in their history, after the 2017/2018 season. The goal-scoring king vacancy created with the departure of Portuguese goal-machine Cristiano Ronaldo means there exists a space in the Italian goal hierarchy for Osimhen to occupy, as he remains consistent in scoring.
The new manager of the leading side in Italy, Spalletti, was effusive in his praise of his Nigerian forward. He said: “From an athletic point of view, Osimhen is something incredible. He manages to cover a distance of twenty meters in three or four heartbeats and he makes them alone long before the midfielders come out. In addition to a bomber he is a great team man.”
This is especially high encomium coming from the manager that succeeded Gennaro Gattuso, who sanctioned the transfer of Osimhen even at the deserving high fees that his former Ligue 1 side, Lille, slammed on his head to discourage suitors in Europe from taking him away. With just one more Serie A matchday tie before the international break, an away fixture against Fiorentina, there is every likelihood that Osimhen and his teammates will extend their record further to maintain their start and Osimhen will bring that form into the double-header matches the Super Eagles will play against the CAR.
On his part, Onuachu has made a compelling argument to start for the Super Eagles with his continued record-setting goal-scoring from last season for Racing Genk in Belgium. He has done this in the only way a striker can with a consistent supply of goals to keep Genk apace with the rest of the top sides in the Belgian First Division A. The 27-year-old maintained his reputation as the hatchetman of the side recently, when he put RFC Seraing to the sword, with a performance that could have seen him punish the visitors with four goals but for a missed penalty.
There was no better way for the imposing forward to announce his readiness for a starting XI to the Super Eagles’ coaching crew than putting their Sunday opponents to the slaughter with his Man-of-the-Match performance that ended with a seven-minute blitzkrieg, which stretched between both halves and fetched Onuachu his first hattrick of the season. It was a repeat of exactly how Onuachu began the year, when on Wednesday, January 6, he scored a hattrick as Genk started their 2021 with an emphatic 4-1 victory over KAS Eupen in a Belgian top flight tie.
Against Seraing this last Sunday, the forward scored all three of Genk’s goals between the 42nd minute of the first half and the 2nd minute of the second period to give his side a joint-second position in the early days of the 2021/2022 season. If he had not missed an earlier penalty, in the 34th minute, Onuachu could have finished with more goals. Yet, he was focused from the first whistle and vividly illustrated why he remains the most prolific Nigerian forward in any of Europe’s major first divisions. The goals he scored in the 42nd and 44th minutes very nearly included another one in the 43rd minute which was blocked.
The argument can be had about the quality of the opposition the Super Eagles’ striker faces, week in, week out in Belgium, and how troubling it might be for him to replicate such prolific goal-scoring feat against the more astute defenders in some of the other best leagues across Europe but what cannot be denied is that the 27-year-old possesses the mental fortitude to convert opportunities to goals and the physicality to also trouble defenders of all stripes while maintaining an undisturbed composure as he very clearly demonstrated with his second penalty of the match against Seraing to console himself, the team and the fans for his initial miss.
Another quality that sets Onuachu apart is his patient confidence in the pristine efficiency of his goal-scoring prowess. He, like some of the best strikers in the game, may not score in every match but the capacity is not rendered blunt as a result. For example, the goals took some time to come aflame this season, as he did not score in the Super Cup final or their first game against Standard Liege. However, since then, the hattrick made it the fifth consecutive game of scoring as opposing sides Union Saint-Gilloise, Rapid Vienna, Sint-Truiden, and Antwerp can all attest to in the lead up to his demolition of Seraing on Sunday.
The imposing 6ft 8in forward is once again the highest-scoring player in the Green and White of the Super Eagles. The closest to his output is his striking compatriot Napoli’s Osimhen. Onuachu has 11 goals in 12 appearances and Osimhen has the perfect six goals in six games. Turkey-based Eagles’ captain Musa of Fatih Karagumruk has one goal in six games exactly the same as Samuel Kalu for FC Bordeaux. Moses Simon has played eight times but only scored once for FC Nantes, while Chidera Ejuke has two goals in nine appearances in the Russian top flight with CSKA Moscow. Union Berlin’s Taiwo Awoniyi, who has scored five in 10 games, in a resurgence in the Bundesliga, was not invited.
The question around Onuachu now will be if all that is stacked in his favour will be enough for Rohr to give the 27-year-old a starting shirt in the October internationals. So far, Rohr has shown preference for playing Onuachu as a substitute striker to be called upon in the latter stages of the fixture. He scored an 83rd minute goal, seven minutes after being introduced in Nigeria’s African Cup of Nations AFCON qualifiers against Lesotho in Lagos in March, where he got only 14 minutes of play and also scored the lone-goal winner against Benin Republic three days earlier to break their unbeaten home run. But, he was on for only 19 minutes.
These brief features, such as the the 12 minutes he was on against Liberia on Friday, September 3, and six minutes against Cape Verde four days later, have not allowed Nigeria reap the benefits that are supposed to accrue to the Super Eagles with the advantage of having a forward of his consistency, quality and character. Even though Rohr also places striking responsibilities in Leicester City’s Kelechi Iheanacho, who has repaid that confidence with goals, as he did with his brace against Liberia, Iheanacho’s lack of playing time with the Foxes has seen his scoring at the club level stunted, which cannot be said of Onuachu.
As the international break approaches, for more Group C Qatar 2022 World Cup qualifiers, it may be the time for the Genk giant to get a starting shirt, to strike in collaboration with the unstoppable Osimhen and let the Central African Republic, in particular, and the entire continent, in general, realise that Nigeria’s Super Eagles are set to dominate the striking department of the continent once again as in the days of the unstoppable Rashidi Yekini.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
