5 things about Victor Osimhen revealed in a recent interview of his older brother
Osimhen's elder brother had some unknown details to share.
Although not based on any special research but it won’t be wide off the mark if someone says Victor Osimhen has been the most media-covered Super Eagles player in 2019.
From his exploits with Lille in the 2019/2020 season to his big-money move to Napoli, Osimhen is undoubtedly the most high-profile Nigeria international at this very moment.
The 21-year-old has a huge responsibility to shoulder this season following his €71m move from Lille to Napoli.
On the back of that move, his elder brother Andrew Osimhen had an interview with Complete Sports where he revealed details of the deal with Napoli and the striker’s growing up in Lagos.
We summarize the interview into five points.
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1. How Osimhen’s football career started
In the interview, Andrew further spoke on how his famous brother started playing football on the streets with older kids in the Olusosun suburb of Lagos. He later joined a team called ‘The Young Shall Grow’ put together by a certain late Coach Bakare.
Andrew also narrated how he took up selling newspapers to ensure that his younger siblings including Oismhen go back to school although the striker refused, instead chose to focus on football.
2. A herbalist was consulted before his move to Wolfsburg
Osimhen’s life changed after he scored 10 goals to help the Golden Eaglets of Nigeria to win the 2015 FIFA U17 World Cup in Chile.
After that tournament, the then-teenager was pursued by top clubs including Arsenal and Inter. According to Andrew, they consulted a herbalist called Shira before they made a decision.
“I also made them to understand that I would never do anything at the back of Shira whom God sent to us to help Victor find a breakthrough in his football career,” Andrew said in the interview.
“Shira is just like the herbalists or prophets who see things way ahead of their occurrences. He just saw the potential in Victor and made sure that my brother blew.
“It was just like a dream come true because nobody gave Victor an opportunity even in the Lagos State Junior League, they did not treat him well as they never saw it coming.
“Victor Osimhen is the kind of person that if you are not extremely patient, you cannot manage him, those are the things Shira has, he was the only one who saw it coming.”
Andrew mentioned that they always consulted Shira at every point of the striker's career including before he made the move to Lille.
3. How Lille move happened
After reigniting his career at Belgium side Charleroi, Osimhen moved to Lille where he was also successful and has now moved on again after just a year.
He, however, didn’t want to make that move to Lille in 2019 as he thought it was too early and wanted to remain in Belgium.
“Everything that happened to him at Wolfsburg was still in his memory and he told me that it paid him to remain in the Belgian First Division A with Charleroi where he was really loved by fans,” Andrew said.
“He even said that if he decided to join Lille and anything negative happened to his career, everybody who was giving him pressure to join the French Ligue 1 side would be held responsible.”
4. How Nedved stopped Osimhen from signing a bad deal
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Osimhen would have signed a contract which could have given more money to agents and left him with little if not for a conversation with Juventus legend Pavel Nedved.
According to Andrew, Osimhen’s long-term agent Jean-Gérard Benoit Czajka handed a contract written in the Italian language to the striker which he couldn’t understand.
It was a conversation with Nedved that revealed that the deal offered in that contract would have earned the agent more money than Osimhen. The striker parted ways with Czajka and pitched a tent with another agent with whom he concluded the Napoli deal.
In his words, Andrew said; “It was actually during this process that he met someone who told him to make sure that his contract papers were written in English, the person also called Pavel Nedved, a director at Juventus.
“The person put the phone on speaker and Nedved said everything in that deal was not in any way favourable to the player and that Victor Osimhen will just play for five years and earn small money.”
5. Friendship with Chukwueze
Osimhen and Samuel Chukwueze have been friends since their days together at several youth levels. Both were teammates with the U17 squad that won the World Cup in 2015 and have remained close friends ever since.
The two football stars spent this summer together in France and his brother spoke on their friendship in the interview.
“They were together all through the summer when they came to Nigeria. They are like brothers and it has been that way since their days together at the Under-17 level in 2015,” Andrew said.
“I was opportune to be with the two of them a few weeks back and I was even telling Chukwueze to try and see that the 2015 Golden Eaglets team should come together and have a party.”
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