TSG Hoffenheim of Germany centre-back Kevin Akpoguma has declared his intention to play for the Super Eagles after representing Germany at youth level. Completesports.com’s ADEBOYE AMOSU digs out seven facts about the defender.
1. Nigerian Father/ German Mother
Kevin was born to Nigerian father and German mother. His father migrated from Nigeria at a very young age before settling down in Germany.
2. Earlier Played As Striker
The tall, strong and imposing defender used to be a centre-forward before he was converted by a former youth coach.
3. U-17 Euro Championship Winner With Germany
The 25-year-old was part of the German U-17 team that won the European Championship in Hungary. They defeated Portugal 1-0 in the final.
4. Helped Germany Pip Nigeria At U-20 W/Cup
The big centre-back captained the German U-20 side at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in New Zealand in 2015. Germany knocked the Flying Eagles out of that competition in the second round. Wilfred Ndidi, Kelechi Iheanacho and Isaac Success were part of Flying Eagles team.
5. Veteran Of Germany’s Age-Grade Teams
Kevin played in all of Germany’s youth teams- U16, U17, U18 and U19 before agreeing to represent Nigeria at senior level.
6. Best German Youth Player Award Winner
In 2013, Kevin got the Fritz-Walter medal award from the German Football Federation. The award honours every year the best Germany players of U17, U18 and U19.
7. Only Two Visits To Nigeria
Born in Germany, Kevin has visited Nigeria only twice. The first time was when he was four-years old.
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COMMENTS
This guy gives me the Boateng vibe….with the world cup fast approaching expect more players to have a sudden change of mind…I mean it’s not bad for us to have more decent players but will their commitment last beyond the World cup if we qualify. Only time will tell.
It has to be my brother unfortunately. You only accept average when the better isn’t available. “Na only condition fit make a Harvard graduate work as a gateman”.
Hope you got the drift.
Una dey fall our country hand oh. shebi na super eagles come be the gateman job abi? let me remind you guys that there was a time olisadebe waited patiently for our call up and didnt get it before he opted for second option which was poland. then we had options like aghahuwa, agali, ikpeba, kanu, etc. we where almost like brasil in terms of options. now that we dont have those calibers in our store anymore. average players now see us as second option and una dey clap for them. imagine wen we had mutiu jayjay and oruma as options in the attacking midfield, i doubt if a championship player like eze could ever get a call in that era neighther the tiny looking saka that recently opted for his slavemasters. the reason why some Nigerians remain proud of our football is bcos of our past heroes. presently our football level is poor in terms of players quality both in club and national team performance, it could possibly be the poorest since 1980. thats why i dont argue with Dr drey and gernot rohr whenever they say we are not there yet. its true we arw not there at the moment. and we have to thank gernot rohr for his coaching arbility. making us appear like we are there already and some of us are even comparing the present super eagles to the 1994 eagles! its a good thing and a good feelings for us (fans) and its calling back that patrotism that we lost in recent times. but in the reality we are truly not there at the moment and thanks to our coaching department that we appear to be there. in terms of player quality our present players cannot equal the players we had after the 1994 era, not to talk of 1994 era meaning they are possibly the poorest set of players since 1990s. i want to compare them to players we had after 1994 team, to prove my point and i am open to corrections if anyone thought otherwise. goal keeper enyeama and ejide are far better than what we have now. our best striker osihmen though he is hot and we hope he becomes one of our greatest but he cant be presently compared to the likes of obafemi martins, aghahuwa,and yakubu. in terms strike quality though he could be better.
chukueze is hot and probably our hotest winger. but you cant place him ahead of osaze odemwingie in terms of alround quality as a winger and goal scorer osaze will still come ahead of him.
musa and kalu cannot be compared to john utaka obina nsofo and ike uche. in that wing if they happens to be of same era the later will put the former in bench.
attacking midfield iwobi, etebo and aribo are still not to be compared to the likes of ike kalu, obi mikel, christain obodo, wilson oruma.
dm position, though Ndidi is the main man there and might be closly compared to sheyi olofinjana, yosuf ayila, sani keita, and etuhu. i will still place the in a tie brake in terms of quality.
taye taiwo udeze and babayaro are still above who ever we have in our left back now i guess we all know that
abbey george and chidi odia at their best will displace aina, shehu or awaziem. that we currently parade in our rightback.
finaly center back men. here is also a close call and i will live you guys to decide on this one. yobo, (everton) joseph enakhire (sporting lisbon) onyekach apam(nice) danny shittu(wolves)
vs balogun (rangers) ekong (watford) ajayi (westbrom) and omeruo(leganes).
i think after these comparism we will have more reason to respect and support our current coaching department. thank you.
You actually made a hell lot of sense with your points my brother but you are just off the topic. Olisadebe was born and grew up in 9ja while Eze, Saka, Akpoguma, Abraham etc were born and grew up in europe. Consider it also that the Polish national team was nowhere near the class of the Eagles during Olisadebe’s playing days.
It’s always easy to mention names of football players from the vintage and place them ahead of ones playing at the moment.
This former super eagles players you mentioned were good but not all of them are better than ones we have now.Back in the day they get the sticks just like the present day internationals,neither is the winning ratio better than the present day’s.We didn’t go past the second round of the world cup during the era of the Mutui’s neither do we find victories easier then than we are experiencing with Rohr’s super eagles.I don’t get the point you are making.
It’s mere stereotype thing to believe everything in the past is better than present.That’s why people become hero in their death than they are alive.Singers of the past are revered better than present day’s.That includes boxing of the 60’s and 70’s gets better ratings than today’s.Mohammed Ali would alway’s be the greatest forever,that includes Pele and Maradonna ahead of Christiano Ronaldo and Messi,Andre Agassi and John McEnroe(tennis players)and the list goes on.
I don’t do stereotype!
If you know super eagles well then u will know as well that we have better players now than before..How can you compare yakubu and martins to oshimen.from 2008 till Rhor took over,super eagles were boring to watch.No thanks to big men we had playing for us.No exciting play.know this ,without the quality of players we have now the coach couldn’t have done anything meaningful.you got me cracked up when u mention olafinjan..he is one of the worse players I have seen put on the green Jersey,Joseph enakhire even makes your comparison more comical..the truth is that you can never satisfy an average Nigeria,it boils down to our mentality as people.if you critically look at avalanche of players we have now.you will pity the coach.RB we have 3 good players trying to claim that position (ola,Tyrone, Kingsley ehiz)not to mention of awaziem.Same goes to all the departments..wait until u see Calvin bassey and ovie ejarie play..
So my brother we have better players now than we had pre rhor.
Whoever is comparing the current eagles to the 1994 team is high on something. Don’t even know what to call this eagles team again, with all this foreign set up we having. if they were that good, they would have displaced any player in there country of birth. We are just a second option like collins said. Am sorry but nothing is fantastic about this current eagles compared to back in the days.
Good analysis, but where we are clearly better than after 94 set in the defence. The Oyibo wall especially during the world cup qualifiers was really the best we had in over 2 decades. The wall of an in-form Balogun and Ekong is much better than Yobo, Shittu and others. The wall that made Zambia, Cameron and Algeria look so ordinary. What we lacked then was full backs and keeper. I wish Ikeme was strong, I know the last world cup and nation cup would have been better.
But now, Rohr who was and experienced defender in his days is still not satisfied so he is recruiting more defenders, so i know the team is definitely getting stronger than what it was in the last 2 decade.
God bless you sir@Ikeben…. I don’t just know how somebody will be comparing old super eagles and the current squad…..talking about olafijana and ndidi, you dey crase? Ndidi is one of the best DM in Europe now oo….e be like you dey forget….our defense has greatly improved….likewise everyother role….pls let’s appreciate Rohr for what he is doing….
i agree with ikeben on the deffensive part. though i will place yobo ahead of ekong and balogun but he yobo didnt have a better patnership like ekong and balogun. secondly i didnt say the team pre rohr plays better than rohrs team i only said the players have better individual qualities. the only person who have proved something otherwise is ikeben who made reference to the deffence. as for @cardinal. what have osihmen done so far that is new to martins or aghahuwa and yakubu? is it with eagles or in club that he has done better? pls be clear in ur arguments rather than just been counter reactive. ndidi performance at 2019 afcon is not anywhere better than olofinjana 2004 afcon performance. in club level olofinjana was a regular in stoke city premier league just as ndidi his doing now. in terms of ball distribution olofinjana his still ahead u can go and ceck their highlights. but ndidi have better tackles than him thats why its draw for me. for some of you claiming not to understand my points. its simple as ABC what i am saying is that we had better players than we have now. infact 2006 2004 afcon team is more stronger in terms of individual quality than we have now. its not about stereo type just call out names and prove me wrong simple.
Permit me to digress a bit, just saw leeds torment man city, man city were lucky to get away with a draw today. My prayer is for our dear SE to play with that kinda intensity, those boys from leeds are fit, if u haven’t seen those guys place please do. they gave liverpool a run for dia money. If our players can be that fit and play a bayern like pressing game with max intensity, we will be very difficult to beat. I understand club football is different from club football but one can wish right?
i meant “they gave liverpool a run for dia money in dia 1st game even tho liverpool won 4:3:
We will always make comparisons, its how we know whether we are improving or receding.
I like the comparisons but we have to be honest.
The super eagles of the 94 era is far better than what we have now.
This group of players are still trying to know each other and play as a team. They have good prospects and can accomplish great things in the future but they cant compare to the eagles of 94.
Also, I see some people avoid using names like jayjay okocha, kanu nwankwo, finidi George, taribo west in terms of comparing individual players of the past and present, you did well to do so because we dont have any player in our current setup that can compare to any of them.
What I can say is that we are on the right track and with this new crop of young players, we can get there.
If Kevin can captain German u 20 he also won the best player award on youth level in 2013,we should believe he is a good player at any standard, we need the competent hands of other good players in the team to do well just like 1994 team,of cause we have them now,let us support these guys