High Expectations, Big Flop: 10 Players Expected to Be Nigeria's Next Big Stars, Now Struggling

Following the success of Nigeria's Golden Eaglets, which won the 2013 and 2015 Fifa U17 World Cup back to back and we saw some of these enterprising youngsters display unbelievable raw skills. We all extrapolated that by 2018 - 2022 Nigeria would have developed such a formidable national team that can compete for the world cup in Qatar 2022.

Considering that these guys where truly young, not like before when Nigeria fielded over aged players. These players were truly under seventeen as confirmed by the MRI scan. So, we felt that most of them that shone like million stars in the Fifa cadet tournament will be an instant hit at top flight football and quickly grow to become worldclass stars..., Nigeria next big stars playing for Barcelona like Emmanuel Amunike or Juventus like Sunday Oliseh, PSG like Austin Okocha or Arsenal like Nwankwo Kanu... But today we see must of these players struggling to make first team shirt in some lower clubs.

Let us take a look at 10 of these players we had high expectations for, but who rather are struggling before our very eyes.

1. Kelechi Iheanacho was Nigeria's golden boy, named Caf most promising player of Africa after he won the Fifa U17 world cup with Nigeria's  Eaglets; where he won Fifa Golden ball and Fifa Silver boot.

Everyone expected him to instantly turn out a world-class star of high reckoning, perhaps without exaggeration, in the class of Messi or Ronaldo.

Iheanacho immediately got a good signing to a top flight millionaire club, Manchester City and our hope got even higher that he will develop in the next two years or so. Pellergrin gave him playing time and he seems to be improving. But when Pep Guardiola took over Man city, he declared him surplus.

Iheancho signed for Liecester city in 2017 and most football analysts felt it was a good move for him to resuscitate his game and play more regularly. But that didn't happen as Iheanacho continued to struggle and now relegated to the bench of a lower team like Liecester city. Nobody could yet explain what is happening to this Nigeria's golden boy.

2. Victor Osimehin: Has a similar story like Iheanacho. Named Caf youth player of the year 2015 after he won Fifa U17 World cup same year...where he won Fifa golden boot as well as Fifa silver ball. Osimehin was expected to replicate his goal scoring prowess at the big stage.

Bundesliga contender Vfl Wolfburg quickly signed him...and in his first season he made 12 appearances without scoring a goal. Disappointed Wolfburg loaned him out to a Belgium side Charleroi. Both injury and loss of form keep Osimehin on the bench. He is gradually picking up his form again. In 2018, he scored 8 goals in 16 appearances for the Belgium side.

Most Nigerian football fans were disappointed the way his career is going, but still nurse a kind of hope that Osimehin will soon break out of the duldrum to show the kind of striker he is.

3. Isaac Success is one player we have high hopes to become one of the next world class striker. He was the first choice striker, the one expected to shine for Nigeria's eaglets in 2013 Fifa U17 World cup, but he was sidelined by injury after two games.

Success was the first player to sign professionally for Udinese, among the all conquering golden eaglets of 2013. He later signed for Granada CF but injury greatly hampered his development and progress in the game.

When Success signed for the Premier league side Watford in replacement of fellow Nigerian striker  Odion Ighalo, who moved to China, everyone thought here was the opportunity for Success to bring his game to the spotlight. but he struggled all the way, scored just 4 goals in 49 appearances for the Premiership side and was given away on loan to Malaga.

4. kelechi Nwakali ingenius way of controling the midfield as the captain and playmaker of Nigeria's eaglets that won 2015 Fifa U17 World cup, where he also won the golden ball award, caught the interest of one of the world's biggest player's agency Stellar Group. Nwakali was immediately signed to  Arsenal youth team.

Everyone ecpected he would quickly move to Arsenal main team in the next one year or two, but his progress have been very slow and disappointing. He has been on loan to MVV Maastricht anf VVV Venlo in the Eerste Divisie and Eredivisie respectively.

Nwakali again signed on loan for FC Porto on July 18, 2018, most Nigerian fans hope that he could break into Porto first team, but again he was demoted to Porto B team to  everyone's disappointment.

5. Taiwo Awoniyi was quick to get out of the shadows of Isaac Success dominance of the striking role in the all conquering 2013 golden eaglets. And when Succes got injured in the second game of Fifa U17 World Cup, it became a great opportunity for Awoniyi to shine and he did that in style leading the team to win the trophy.

Awoniyi was signed by Premier League high flyers Liverpool, but haven't been able to break into the main team. Awoniyi's style of play has been compared to that of Rashidi Yekini, Nigeria's all-time highest goalscorer, but he has been struggling to prove his striking prowess at the big stage.

Awoniyi has been on loan for the last four years...from Frankfurt to NEC, Gent and now on his second coming to Royal Excel Mouscron. Awoniyi's progress have been slow and disapointing to most Nigerian fans.

 6. Musa Muhammad: Hard tackling, overlapping right back defender who score goals freely. Broke record as a defender who became the highest goalscorer of Afcon U20 championship with 4 goals for the flying eagles of Nigeria in 2015.

Muhammad was the captain of both the victorious golden eaglets in 2013 and the flying eagles of 2015. He played a peculiar style only a player with excessive stamina could sustain... going to join attack, fortified the middle and back defending in one continuing move for 90 minutes. Something more hypotense than what we saw Brazilian Roberto Carlos play in his time.

You cannot blame anyone who felt Muhammad will be an astonishing world class star. Of course, it was rumoured that both Barcelona and PSG showed intitial interest, but Muhammad was to sign for İstanbul Başakşehir.in 2015.

But then Muhammad began to blow hot and cold in his game, started to loose such effectiveness associated to his defending... In other words, he began to make costly mistakes in crucial games. He was then offloaded on loan to Bulgarian First League club, Lokomotiv Plovdiv till the end of 2018.

Injury was one of the bane of Muhammad. His game began to go down when he started nursing a reocurring knee injury. The question remain can we again see the best of Musa Muhammad as he just signed a new contract for HNK Gorica.

7. Junior Ajayi: A very skillful and intelligent youngster, who can play both as attacking midfielder or an outright striker. Ajayi creativity and confidence with the ball can captivate any coach at first sight. Ajayi eye for goal as well as defy assists make him such an outstanding talent everyone expected to make it into top flight football in Europe. He contributed in no little measure to Nigeria's Dream team bronze medal at Rio De Janeiro

Since then, Ajayi couldn't attract any top club from Europe. He only signed and became first choice striker for Cf Sfixen in 2016/ 17 and in 2018, he sign for Al Ahly in Egypt But his game hasn't gone beyond African shore and his popularity is fast fading away.

8. Umar Sadiq showed so much promise that he will turn out a world class striker. Towering over 6. 3 ft tall and  galup speed like an Ostrich, Sadiq quickly caught the interest of many top agencies from Abuja fc to Spezia Calcio in Italian Seria B and then caught the interest of Roma on loan in Italian Seria A, where he scored 2 goals in seven appearances. Roma decided to sign him for $5.2 million in 2016.

Sadiq spearheaded the attack of the bronze medal winning Nigeria U23 Dream team, where he scored 4 goals in six appearances. Most Nigerian fans expected the Rio De Janeiro Olympics to launch Sadiq to greater performances, but his game began to drop due to reoccurring knee injury.

Roma had to loan him back to several Seria B teams: Bologna, Torino, NAC Breda, Rangers and his game hasn't resuscitated since then. Still struggling in Seria B team, Perugia, where he has just scored one goal in six appearances.