Jerome Akor has shot his way into the hearts of millions of Nigerians after he came off the bench to score what will prove an all-important winning goal against hosts Lesotho in Polokwane.
It was not only the significance of this strike, but also the class of the goal that has crowned the Sevilla striker the latest hero of a country of over 200 million football-mad people.
He controlled the pass from Victor Osimhen on the edge of the box, took out his marker with a step-over, before he fired home with his weaker left foot to give Nigeria a cushion of a second goal in a match they were condemned to win.
Akor, 25, made the provisional squad for last month’s World Cup qualifiers against Rwanda and South Africa only to miss the final cut due to injury.
The former Flying Eagles striker deserved his first Super Eagles call-up after he followed up on his match winner at Rayo Vallecano with another superb finish for Sevilla to dump mighty Barcelona 4-1 in La Liga.
The big, powerful centre-forward has made his five years in Europe to count, beginning with his time in the Norwegian second division with Sogndal before he made the jump to the top league in Norway with Lillestrom SK.
His flurry of goals in his second season at Lillestrom earned the Oslo club a record five million euros when he transferred to the French Ligue 1 club Montpellier, when all expectations were that he would follow the way of his friend Victor Boniface by first moving to Belgium before the big jump to a major league.
At 25, Akor is at the peak of his powers as a striker.
He is a good target man with a good hold-up play, has good technique, positioning, ready to improvise and he is most deadly in the air.
He is also hungry to make his name on the big stage for both club and country.
And barring injury problems, he has at the first time of asking boosted his chances of featuring at the 2025 AFCON in Morocco, six years after he first represented Nigeria at the 2019 U20 World Cup in Poland.
