Former Nigeria U17 invitee Ademipe Odubeko made his first team debut for West Ham United by playing in their 1-0 win over Stockport in the third round of the English FA Cup.

Odubeko was introduced in the 90th minute for Michail Antonio for his first team bow which came after his return from an injury lay off that kept him out for four months.

The 18 year old joined West Ham in 2019 snubbing interest from Juventus and Atletico Madrid. Prior to his move to West Ham he also played for Manchester United during his school years.

He turned down a contract extension at Manchester United after scoring 35 goals for the youth teams of the Red Devils and also netting on his U18 debut for same team.

In 2019 he was among the players born abroad handed a chance to train with the Nigeria U17 team alongside his teammate Daniel Jinadu who ended up making the Nigerian U17 squad for the World Cup.

A series of administrative issues made him to shun the chance and later honour a call up to the Irish U17 team but he didn’t get to play for them.

Former captain of the senior national team of Nigeria John Obi Mikel causes a stir at the Super Eagles World Cup camp in Austria ahead of the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

William D’Avilla who now manages the affairs of Napoli record signing Victor Osimhen was accosted by Mikel who felt his presence in the camp of the team was a huge distraction.

In the build up to the World Cup, the French agent went from not having a single client in the senior national team of Nigeria to managing eight players within the space of a year.

The rumors back then was that he was using his relationship with coach Gernot Rohr to convince players into signing for his agency, something which Mikel challenged openly when he came face to face with the agent.

“ I remember that incident at the balcony. We were heading out for a stroll. Mikel walked up to him and told him he is here to distract players by making them sign for his agency”, a player told Owngoalnigeria.com.

“ Such was Mikel’s annoyance that Williams has to leave the camp in Austria. We were in same hotel but after the incident with the captain he had to leave and till date I can’t remember seeing him in the Super Eagles camp again”, he concluded.

Real Sociedad faces Barcelona at the Estadio Nuevo Arcangel in Cordoba in a fixture from the 1/2-finals of the Spanish Super Cup. One of these two teams will reach the final of the competition to face the winner from the game between Real Madrid and Athletic Bilbao. We expect some fireworks here, so let’s check it out in our free soccer predictions today.

Real Sociedad are doing better compared to the previous season. Right now the Basques are 5th in La Liga’s standings with 30 points won and they are dreaming of a Top 4 finish and return to the Champions League. The head coach Imanol Alguacil is doing a fine work in San Sebastian and he managed to transform La Real to a Top 4 contender. The manager deserves credit for his work so far.

Real Sociedad’s current problems are related to the club’s unconvincing shape at the moment. The Basques won just one of their last five matches in La Liga and they lost three of them. This comes to tell us that right now Sociedad are a little bit shaky which worries the fans before the 1/2-final against Barca.

Few days ago La Real had a tough visit to Sevilla where they suffered a 2-3 defeat at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan. Another problem for Real Sociedad is the injury of the legendary playmaker David Silva. The former Spanish international is sidelined at the moment which lowers the creativity in Sociedad’s play.

Barcelona on the other hand are starting to reach their best form. The Catalans won four of their last five matches including the last three away from home. The pundits now believe that Ronald Koeman is finally finding the right approach since he became manager of the team.

On Saturday Barcelona showed their strenghts and achieved a dominating 4-0 win during the visit to Granada. Lionel Messi and Antoine Griezmann shined for Los Cules scoring braces for the three points. The only bad news come from the injury of the centre-back Ronald Araujo who got injured during the warm-up. Araujo will miss the next game because of his injury.

It seems that right now Ronald Koeman is trusting Lionel Messi, Antoine Griezmann and Ousmane Dembely as his attacking trident. The 18-years old Pedri is usually playing behind the front three and he’s one of Barcelona’s players in the best shape.

The situation with Miralem Pjanic remains a mystery, though. The Bosnian international arrived with high hopes from Juventus, but he’s barely starting games under Ronald Koeman. In most of the cases the Dutch manager prefers to pick the veteran Sergio Busquets and Frenkie De Jong in midfield. Pjanic already admitted he’s not happy with his situation, but there ain’t much he can do right now.

We have many reasons to expect some excellent football by Real Sociedad and Barcelona on Wednesday. The Catalans are hitting some peak form lately, so it’d be interesting to see if they can continue like this. Meanwhile La Real remain one of the best teams in Spain at the moment despite their average performance in the last month or so.Barca might be the favourites, but in our free soccer predictions today we warn you to be careful with Sociedad.

The desire of any fan of the senior national team of Nigeria is to see Paul Onuachu transform his club form at Genk to the Super Eagles especially his form this season.

Onuachu has scored 19 goals this season, a new personal record for the 26 year old but for the senior national team of Nigeria he has just one goal in seven games. A form that has seen him drop to second choice behind Victor Osimhen.

Many have forgotten so soon that Onuachu went into the 2019 AFCON as first choice striker but lost his spot after the first game to Odion Ighalo who ended up as top scorer. Osimhen was below the duo in the pecking order back down.

Fast forward to now and the Napoli record buy is easily the first name on the team sheet when the lineup of the team is made for games. Second choice striker Onuachu struggled to impress in his absence.

“ What we think as a team is that Onuachu is under huge pressure to perform for the team with Osimhen the favorite of many to start games. The team style of play suites Osimhen better”, a backroom staff told Owngoalnigeria.com.

“ Onuachu plays differently from Osimhen but the team can’t adjust to suit one player. It’s about his confidence not about the team style of play. Osimhen performance puts him under huge pressure to impress when he gets a chance and that hasn’t helped him”.

Flashback to September 2019 when Huesca announced the signing of 2015 U17 Most Valuable Player (MVP) many saw it as a coup considering they were back then in the second division in Spain.

Fast forward to 2021 and the buzz that came with his signing has since evaporated with the 22 year old yet to establish him in the team, although he missed six months of his stay at the club due to visa issues.

The team gained promotion with Nwakali paying a less to nothing role in the process but much was expected of him when they resumed for pre season training ahead of the start of the season.

He played in all but two of their games ahead of the start of the season leading to talks of how he could be important for the team when the league starts.

That appears not to be case as since playing on the 20th of November in a 1-1 draw against Osasuna he hasn’t played a minute of league football.

In the Copa Del Rey where they played teams from lower division he was introduced as a substitute in the games against Marchamalo and CD Alcoyano respectively.

Both in league and Cup games this season he has played just 228 minutes of first team football which isn’t good enough for a player once considered as a future captain of the senior national team of Nigeria.

Even a change of role from his preferred number ten position to a deep lying playmaker hasn’t help his case and at 22 with his team struggling he is the least in the news.

20th placed Huesca are more concern about staying in the top division with today’s game against Real Betis offering them the chance to breathe life into their campaign with Nwakali their once celebrated signing not sure of getting any minutes.

21 year old Nigerian striker Terem Moffi did a whole lot of good to his chances of getting a call up to the senior national team of Nigeria with his third goal of the season for Lorient.

The forward who joined the team in the summer from Belgium side KV Kortrijk for a fee of around €3 million drew his team level in the 23rd minute but his team slumped to a 1-2 loss.

His third goal of the season could however be the most important yet in his career so far as he had the coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Gernot Rohr watching.

Rohr who is a Bordeaux faithful was watching the game with Samuel Kalu returning from a long injury lay off straight into the starting lineup in a number ten role.

However it was Moffi that made the biggest impression on the Franco-German coach who has now added the power playing forward to the options available to him as back up to first choice striker Victor Osimhen.