ABIDJAN — Ademola Lookman had to think about whether he might ever play for Nigeria. He had won the Under-20 World Cup alongside seven players who have gone on to represent England’s senior team, but Lookman is the exception. After long, serious deliberation, he chose the nation of his family heritage over the one of his birth.
Nigeria was always likely to be the easier route to regular international football, but in 2020 Lookman decided to pick England. Now the Africa Cup of Nations might be his route to an extraordinary legacy. “I’m happy I made it,” Lookman recalled last year. “This has been the best decision I ever made.” Hasn’t it just?
The same is roughly true of Lookman’s club career, which too shifted in one excellent judgement call. Wandsworth-born, Peckham-raised and Charlton Athletic-trained, Lookman’s notorious potential had got a little stuck at Everton, RB Leipzig and then Leicester City. He took Atalanta’s offer to move to Bergamo in August 2022, six months after his international switch.
Last season, Lookman scored more league goals than Paulo Dybala, Romelu Lukaku and Dusan Vlahovic and more in the same team as Rasmus Hojlund. One of them subsequently moved to Manchester United for £64m. Lookman will smile wryly and say that he is happy where he is. He is a man at the top of his game. At 26, potential has gone all grown up.
Nigeria had been waiting for Lookman for two years and were quick to make him feel wanted.
He made his debut six weeks later, March 2022, in a 0-0 draw in Ghana and, when Jose Peseiro got the job in May of the same year Lookman was a prime candidate to feature in the next major tournament.
When Taiwo Awoniyi and Victor Boniface pulled out through injury, he became a likely starter.
Peseiro possessed the strongest front three at this tournament before it started and that conclusion has become more emphatic as continental giants have been toppled by a variety of David’s weapons.
Victor Osimhen’s most fervent supporters would describe him one of the top three centre forwards in world football. Moses Simon has always been a bundle of pent-up possibilities, although he is at Nantes because it has never burned with a steady flame.
Both of those have been supporting actors to Lookman’s excellence. He has scored all three of Nigeria’s knockout goals and the Super Eagles are better than anyone else at getting to semi-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations. It’s usually there that they run into better sides or their own incompetence. Only the latter may scupper them now.
The goal that eliminated Angola was supreme, a collection of technically and aesthetically beautiful elements that combined to break through stupor in stifling heat, like the perfect cocktail on a summer’s day.
Simon broke clear of a challenge he always seemed second favourite to win. Osimhen’s movement took two Angolan defenders into danger like Hamelin’s soundtrack.
Lookman finished with absolute composure with his left foot, high into the net, and then ran away with an expression that said “Fuss? What’s that about?”.
Part of the charm is that Lookman offers such flexibility and positional versatility that this Nigeria team needs.
With three central defenders, wing-backs and two passing central midfielders, the ball usually ends up out wide with Osimhen screaming for a cross or being worked infield from a similar position.
In that scenario, Lookman can be the free man – he started Serie A matches in five different positions last season. Osimhen is the penalty box presence. Simon is the winger. Lookman is whatever you want him to be.
All around this team, glorious happenstance is building to make them the most likely winners of Afcon for only the second time since 1994, a wretched record given the depth of their resources. Nobody personifies their hopes more than Lookman.
Three years ago, he was an England hopeful and a RB Leipzig player on loan to Fulham. Three months ago he had two handfuls of senior caps and a handful of dreams. Everything since has justified everything else: the best decision of his life.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/26tGCW3
Post a Comment