Jeremy Seethal the head of the recruitment team of Right to Dream Africa , a multi-club group of academies has made a startling revelation about out of favour Super Eagles striker Olarewaju Kayode, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Seethal has a track record, having brought Ajax’s Mohammed Kudus, Kamaldeen Sulemana of Southampton and Brighton’s Simon Adingra to Right to Dream — which is now widely recognised as the pinnacle of African youth football.
While speaking on the difficulties of getting European teams to scout in Africa, Seethal went down memory lane to the 2011 U20 Africa Cup of Nations, when he was trying to make headway as a scout.
While there, he compiled a list of who he considered the top 10 players in the competition. Number one was Nigerian striker Olarenwaju Kayode, who was signed by City in 2017 and is now at Turkey’s Umraniyespor, on loan from Shakhtar Donetsk of Ukraine. Number two was Salah.
He went further to say despite that he recommended Salah to top clubs in Europe, but no feedback was gotten.
“He was on the right wing, running at high speed, shaping to shoot, then cutting in and caressing it in the corner. All the things you see him do now (for Liverpool),” Seethal tells The Athletic.
“He was special, but it’s difficult to distinguish what elite level looks like. The big clubs didn’t know about Salah, so I recommended him to Ajax, PSV and Manchester United. I either never heard back at all or I received an email saying, ‘Thanks, we’ll pass it on’, but there was no feedback ever given.”
Ade Emmanuel
