This was a most productive league-winning season for Super Eagles midfielder Raphael Onyedika with Club Brugge in Belgium.
Raphael Onyedika with his first goal for #Nigeria.pic.twitter.com/Wojt65jrFT
— Oluwashina Okeleji (@oluwashina) June 10, 2024
Onyedika’s journey showed that persistence and hard work pay as he was one of Brugge most used players with 51 appearances and 3,762 minutes played in the just-concluded season, including a whopping 1,284 minutes played in the UEFA Europa Conference League.
In the Belgian Jupiler Pro League, the Imo State indigene was involved in 30 games and 2,357 minutes in total across which he was able to net thrice even as a defensive midfielder.
Onyedika was pretty good defensively as his side Brugge only conceded 29 times when he was involved and kept 21 clean sheets.
Even despite being a defensive-minded midfielder for his club, Onyedika still had a very good dribbles success rate of 68.75%, 15 key passes, an outstanding pass completion rate of 87.61%, with his 1,301 out of 1,485 being successful.
He was only booked nine times in his 30 league appearances.
Club Brugge struggled in the regular season before they turned their campaign around in the Championship Playoffs, where Onyedika proved he can also score goals with three crucial goals.
Interestingly, it was a change of coaches before the playoffs that turned things for both player and club.
He was with the Super Eagles who won silver in the AFCON in Cote d’Ivoire under coach José Peseiro.
He did not enjoy much game time at the AFCON, but bounced back to top reckoning to score his first goal for the Super Eagles in a 2026 World Cup qualifier against the Cheetahs of Benin Republic in Abidjan.
Onyedika has now looked beyond these and has his eyes set on doing wonders for Club Brugge next season in the Champions League after he was ranked seventh among 143 defensive-minded players in Belgium.
