Nigerian midfielder, Oladoye Adewale, is thrilled to have inspired Gent’s 2-2 comeback draw against RFS from Latvia at the Ghelamco Arena in Thursday’s first leg of the third round of the European Cup qualifying match.
The 19-year-old who joined Gent in March alongside his bosom friend Chinoso Emeka from Nigerian club, Water FC was handed his first start by coach Hein Vanhaezebrouck in the encounter and he repaid the faith by scoring a crisp 20-yard shot to reduce his side’s deficit in the 57th minute after Gent trailed RFS 2-0.
Darko Lemajic and Tomas Simkovic had shot the visitors into a two-goal lead before the break before the Nigerian halved the RFS’ lead in the 52nd minute.
Tarik Tissoudali earned Gent a share of the spoils in the 77th minute.
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Adewale making his third appearance for the club since he was promoted to the first team at the start of the season said, “I’m feeling really happy we came back to draw the game.
“It shows that all the hard work I’ve put in over the months since I arrived in March is just starting to pay off,” Adewale said after the game.
“It’s important that I keep working hard to enjoy more moments like this.
“I didn’t think that particular attempt was going to be my chance, but I always try to stay ready around the edge of the opponent’s box and I’m happy that on this occasion it paid off.
“It’s been good to be involved with the first team and I’m happy to see the boss (Vanhaezebrouck) showing faith in me. It feels like a good experience for me, I just need to keep on learning, keep on adding to my game and I’m happy that I could contribute today.”
3 Comments
Another world class Defensive midfielder in the making from Nigeria’s production line of defensive midfielders…….Tall strong agile with a very good passing skill…..He is still young and has room to improve and probably move to a higher league some day.
We too like to hype average players. Nigeria is not a super power
The guy is a good player… This is no hype, we are just excited for the young man, that they are going to Europe this early now shows Nigeria will be reaping it longterm as these guys will be on the stage for longer periods… He was in the last U-20 with another equally gifted fulani boy in midfield from Nasarawa united… they were both evidently young, infact the other guy really impressed me… I watched all the games with @Proudly9ja on stream… I am an ardent follower of Nigeria youth teams because that’s where you see football in pure nativity form… a good agent always makes a lot of difference in football career. Ndidi was forged in Belgium… and nothing stops Oladoye from even surpassing what Ndidi did in Belgium. We need all the options we can get in Defensive midfield position and I hope Samson Tijani will also be coming through soon at Redbull Salzburg, Austria. I put Oladoye Adeleye’s name forward in the run up to Mexico match with the likes of Nwakali and a few other good fringe foreign pros to mix it with some of the homeboys so that we can post a better challenge to Mexico… but sadly nothing of the sorts was done and we lost bigly… we should be using friendlies to really test players who are promising and not playing an entirely main squad with zero gains in the end like against Cameroun recently… I will be watching this Oladoye guy and Gent all season in Belgium…