Victor Osimhen had a quarter of an hour to prove himself. It was 2014, he was 15 and playing for Ultimate Strikers Academy, a youth team based in Lagos. Or rather, he wasn’t playing: he had just been dropped from their team and was trying to figure out what to do next.Then a scout called Shira Ayila brother of former Nigeria international Ayila Yussuf who had watched Osimhen play and saw something in the tall, gangly forward, invited him to take part in some mass trials for the under-17 national team.The trials were in Abuja, the nation’s capital and more than 300 miles away. Osimhen had never even left Lagos before, and certainly couldn’t afford a plane ticket. So he and five others squeezed into Ayila’s car and drove for 10 uncomfortable hours to get there.There were hundreds of hopefuls at the trials, so many that each player was only given short games of 15 minutes to show what they could do. Osimhen did brilliantly. He scored twice in his 15 minutes. Still, Amunike was
“We see potential spies and enemies everywhere,” says David. “It can be at border control or it can be in a cafe. The other day, a guy was looking at me strangely, so I left without finishing my breakfast, and jumped in a taxi asking the driver to take me to the wrong address.”David is an Eritrean footballer, a refugee who thinks government agents are still watching him even though he fled the country a long time ago and is now thousands of miles away. He felt like his future was being stolen from him yet insists he was one of the lucky ones. Though he recognises the importance of telling at least part of his story, he is thin on detail at times because the conversation makes him feel nervous. When he speaks to The Athletic, he talks quietly. He does not want anyone to hear what he is saying.Read Simon Hughes' sobering piece here.
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