- Nigeria goalkeeper Francis Uzoho is delighted to keep a clean sheet on his maiden appearance for Cypriot club, Anorthosis Famagusta, reports Completesports.com.
Uzoho, 20, made a impressive start to his Anorthosis career, helping his side to a 1-0 victory over Apollon in Saturday’s Cypriot First Division encounter.
The young goalkeeper completed a January transfer deadline day temporary switch from Spanish side Deportivo La Coruna to Cyprus, where he will be spending the rest of the 2018-19 season in order to gain more game time.
Uzoho made just seven appearances for Elche in the Spanish Segunda B before the switch.
He was on for the entire duration against Apollon with Michal Duris netting the winning goal for his team in the 39th minute.
Impressed with his feat on his debut, Uzoho to the social media to celebrate the win.
“It’s just a matter of when but I will definitely get there.
“Happy my debut came with a win and a clean sheet. In Christ alone.”he wrote on Instagram.
Anorthosis are placed fifth on the table after garnering 30 points from 19 games.
They next face Nea Salamis in an away fixture next Saturday.
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9 Comments
_ Golden Gloves _
Why does Alampasu not have the kind of advisers that Uzoho has? the kind who would always ensure that the Nigeria Number one always finds a club where he gets playing time.
Alampasu is a goalkeeper with such huge potentials however, sitting on the bench will not do his development, and national team prospects, any good.
_ No more Crisis _
I recently saw a goalkeeping crisis brewing in the Super Eagles.
However, with Uzoho in a club where he is expected to keep regularly and Ezenwa expected to man the post against Niger Tonadoes today in the NPF League, our goalkeepers are back playing regularly.
Even 3rd choice Akpeyi secured a lucrative move to a title chasing club in South Africa last week where he is expected to feature regularly (let’s wait and see how that will pan out; Kaizer Chiefs play Orlando Pirates on 09 February!)
_ Relief _
All in all, I can now heave a sigh of relief as our goalkeepers are all expected to be active leading up to the Africa Cup of Nations (where my brother Kel expects them to lift the trophy – as for me, I will take it one game at a time 🙂 )
_ Experience is Key _
Still on the issue of goalkeepers, I was reading timeslive.co.za where an article highlighted that ‘experience’ was the thinking behind Kaizer Chiefs’ signing of Akpeyi.
According to the website,a representative at Kaizer Chiefs said: “With ‘Itu’ [Khune] out injured‚ we are obviously challenged when it comes to experience and we had to look for an experienced goalkeeper who will take us forward and compete with the challenges that we had.
We left the issue in the hands of the goalkeeper-coach [Lee Baxter] to look for someone and fortunately on Wednesday we finally came into discussion with Chippa‚ and they were willing to release him to us.
It was a blessing to get an experienced goalkeeper like him who was at the World Cup [in Russia] last year.
This was a blessing because he is No 1 at Chippa‚ and who will sell their No 1 keeper at this time of the season? Even Ajax Cape Town in the NFD did not want to sell their keeper and fortunately Chippa allowed to give Akpeyi.” End of quote.
Now, read what you will to that quote but in truth, why would Chippa United – who are battling relegation – sell their number one goal keeper at such a time of the season?
Well, that doesn’t deflect from the fact that Kaizer Chiefs are a big club and with their number one goalkeeper out for the rest of the season due to shoulder injury, Akpeyi is expected to get valuable game-time leading up to the AFCON in June – something that delights my heart greatly.
Yes, our options are increasing. Rohr also stated he will attend both the CAF champions League match as well as the CAF Confederations Cup games in Enugu to run the rule over the Lobi as well as the Rangers goal keepers.
With the league now in full swing, our options are widening. Uzoho active, Akpeyi making a good move to Kaiser Chiefs, Alampasu active and being promoted to the Feirense first team in the premier League, we have several keepers to choose from.
Uzoho, Ezenwa, Akpeyi, Afelokhai, Afolabi Kayode, Alampasu and Femi Thomas to start with.
Running a league is crucial to developing players, I just hope the NFF and the LMC he’d this and not expect us to perform miracles from nothing
Our best bets going into AFCON, all things being equal, remains Uzoho, Ezenwa and Akpeyi in that order. As much as I’l prefer Alampasu to be amongst the 3, Dele needs to work extra hard at club level to even earn a call up to displace any of the other two back ups and being on the bench 24/7 at fierense wouldnt help. A loan move to even a portugese segunda liga team where he can be no 1 ds january would have been a brilliant move that would have helped his national team chances. I am very sure it was the desire to keep his no 1 shirt that made uzoho move from spain to cyprus on deadline day. According to an interview aired online, Dele said he isnt in a hurry for a national team call up, but my question is if not now, when…? This afcon might be that tournament where francis will stamp his feet as undisputed no 1 for the next decade. If Alampasu is not there to mount a challenge, i fear he might end up being another Austin Ejide in the SE.
@Drey, I’d add Joshua Enaholo to the mix this week. Let’s see what the NPFL throws up in the coming weeks. With players now active and will have close to three months playing time under their belt by the time the game against the Seychelles comes round we should have options for the best local keeper to join the selection. Could be Ezenwa, could be Joshua, could be Afelokhai,
“Former Flying Eagles goalkeeper Joshua Enaholo is the SCORENigeria NPFL Player of Week 6 after he pulled off a string of saves including keeping out a late penalty for Abia Warriors at regional rivals FC IfeanyiUbah
http://scorenigeria.com.ng/2019/02/04/npfl-player-of-week-6-joshua-enaholo-abia-warriors/
‘A Plate’ Enaholo is again showing the class that made him the Flying Eagles undisputed No 1 ahead of Dele Alampasu and Olorunleke Ojo in 201
Im sorry @ Big D. But its going to be a really long walk into the national team for enaholo. Ever since making that disastrous move to enyimba from MFM 3 or 4 years ago…he has been in limbo, just like Emma daniel. It will take more than just few games in the NPFL to get back into reckoning. If people like Afhelokai, Femi Thomas, Ajiboye and Ezenwa are still struggling to stay in and around the national team circles……believe me Enaholo will have to wait for seasons or remain very very very outstandingly consistent to get a look in. A place in the U23 set up might not be long bridge though. But the goal keeping department is one in which you really need to pray hard and work hard to stake a claim. Any child of mine that wants to be a goalkeeper will receive the beating of his life the day I get to know about such ambitions. Lolz
I Must admit, I’m not up to speed with NPFL players, but I did fear that Rohr watched both Lobi and Rangers continental matches to run the rule over players there.
I saw that article and thought “interesting”.
Barring nasty injuries, the goalkeepers are now roaring to hit Egypt with a swagger. Of course, they still need to sharpen their reflexes, optimize their skills, and acquire optimal confidence. North African fans are very unfriendly, so we don’t need a keeper who will wee in his pants. The team psychologist should help them to develop thick skin. The next issue for Rohr is to find a sharp shooter who never misses, the kind Chinua Achebe described in Things Fall Apart.
Hahahaha…..@ Achi….I love that reference of yours….I can never forget that quote: “since birds have learnt to fly without perching, then hunters will learn to shoot without missing”
Honestly, I wish we can have such strikers in the SE. 1 chance one goal strikers like Roy Makaay and Ruud Van Nistelroy