Sparta Rotterdam goalkeeper Maduka Okoye has made remarkable progress for both club and country within a few short months.
He was No 27 in the last edition of SCORENigeria TOP 30.
In his first season in Holland, he has established himself as No 1 at Sparta, keeping 10 clean sheets in 28 appearances in the Dutch league.
It is a very commendable return from a player who did not cost the Dutch club anything when he signed the dotted lines in July 2020 from hometown club Fortuna Dusseldorf.
Such a performance has got several top clubs including Dutch giants Ajax interested.
In February, Super Eagles Gernot Rohr named Okoye as his No 1 choice.
“Number one is Maduka (Okoye),” Rohr said in an interview.
“These decisions I take them with (Alloy Agu) because he is a specialist for goalkeeper training.
“Myself and Alloy, we agreed that it’s actually Maduka.”
Okoye put behind him the nightmare of letting in four second-half goals against Sierra Leone in November to maintain two clean sheets in the final 2021 AFCON qualifiers against Benin and Lesotho in March.
He has now been capped six times by Nigeria since his debut against mighty Brazil in October 2019.
With the Super Eagles he will expect to be kept on his toes by Francis Uzoho, who has returned from injury, and Daniel Akpeyi, who has continued to shine at top South African club Kaizer Chiefs.
But at just 21, this giant shot stopper certainly has many more years to go particularly if you take into account the durability of goalkeepers in the game.
