Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has sent birthday wishes to former Super Eagles goalkeeper Carl Ikeme at 34, Completesports.com reports.
The NFF wrote on their verified Twitter handle: “Happy birthday to former @NGSuperEagles shot-stopper, @Carl_Ikeme. Have a good one.”
Born and raised in England, Ikeme progressed through Wolverhampton Wanderers’ academy and made the first team squad in their 2003–04 Premier League season.
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Ikeme spent his entire career at Wolves making 207 appearances across all competitions and was part of their teams that won the Championship in 2009 and League One in 2014.
He made one Premier League appearance in 2012 and throughout his time at Wolves, he was loaned to eight other clubs.
He was first called up to the Super Eagles squad in March 2007 by Berti Vogts, who named a 37-man provisional squad for a 2008 Africa Cup of Nations qualification match against Uganda.
On 5 September 2015 he made his international debut for Nigeria against Tanzania in a 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualification game.
Also, he made three appearances early on in Nigeria’s successful qualification campaign for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Unfortunately, in July 2017, he was diagnosed with acute leukaemia and a year later, after being in complete remission, he retired from professional football.
By James Agberebi
