Super Eagles star Kelechi Nwakali names former Arsenal striker as his idol

Super Eagles star Kelechi Nwakali names former Arsenal striker as his idol

Joba Ogunwale 15:42 - 13.09.2022

The Nigerian international sat down with the NFF media team to discuss various issues, including his football idol.

In-form Super Eagles midfielder Kelechi Nwakali has named former Nigeria captain Kanu Nwankwo as his football idol. Kanu is one of the best players to come out of Nigeria. The former Super Eagles captain had a storied career, which saw him win the Champions League and three Eredivisie titles with Ajax. Kanu also won the Europa League with Inter Milan before going on to enjoy a successful spell with Arsenal, winning two Premier League titles.

During this period, he also led Nigeria to the gold medal in the football event of the Atalanta 1996 Olympics and was named the African player of the year two times.

Nwakali was one of the players that grew up watching Kanu, and the former Huesca man says the ex-Super Eagles captain will always be his idol.

When asked about his idol in a Q&A with the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) team, Nwakali said: Kanu. He has been my childhood idol till today.

Like Kanu, Nwakali also had a spell at Arsenal but never played first-team football for the Gunners.

He spent most of his time on loan at different clubs before signing for Huesca permanently. Nwakali had a frustrating time at Huesca, with his contract terminated prematurely. However, he was offered another chance by Ponferradina, signing a two-year contract with the club.

var widgetLoaderConfig = widgetLoaderConfig || { CDN_URL: 'https://widgets.sportal365.com', APP_LINK: 'desktop', API_URL: 'https://africa.football.api.sportal365.com/', API_KEY: '2f852b4de2f3a5cf3188e74b33087bb4:2c18422f8e826a7d11aeed52edb2449e', LANG: 'en', REQUEST_INTERVAL: 30, ENABLE_BET_SLIP: false, AUTHOR: false, THEME: "light", TOURNAMENT_ORDER: "pulse_nigeria", LINK_OPTIONS_V2: { 'player' : { 'url': '/football/player/{playerId}' }, 'team' : { 'url': '/football/{teamId}' }, 'tournament': { 'url': '/football/competition/{tournamentId}' }, 'match': { 'url' : '/football/match/{matchId}', 'sort': { 'criteria': 'alphabetically', 'direction': 'asc' } }, 'configuration': { 'newWindow': false }, 'standings_tournament': { 'url': '/football/competition/{tournamentId}/standings' } } }; if (!document.querySelector('script[src="https://widgets.sportal365.com/loader.bundle.min.js"]')) { window.setTimeout(function () { let scriptCss = document.createElement('link'); scriptCss.href = 'https://www.pulsesports.ug/css/sport-widgets.css?v=1668785443'; scriptCss.rel = 'stylesheet'; scriptCss.type = 'text/css'; document.body.appendChild(scriptCss); let scriptTag = document.createElement('script'); scriptTag.src = 'https://widgets.sportal365.com/loader.bundle.min.js'; scriptTag.defer = true; scriptTag.onload = function () { window.setTimeout(function () { new SMPWidgetsLoader(widgetLoaderConfig); }, 200); }; document.head.appendChild(scriptTag); }, 0); } else { new SMPWidgetsLoader(widgetLoaderConfig); }

The 24-year-old has settled in well at his new side, scoring one goal in five league games so far this season.

Tags: