The 'YAK's Retirement; An NPFL Loss.


Twenty years of professional football that started at age 15, 21 National team goals, stints with Portsmouth, Middlesbrough, Everton, Leicester, Blackburn, Reading  to mention a few, Yakubu Aiyegbeni, the third highest goal scorer for the Super Eagles has called time on his 'footballing' career.

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An Illustrious by career by many standards, the 'YAK' terrorized defenders across the premier league for years, employing a sheer use brute force, perfect hold up play and positional discipline to gain the upper hand for his side.


At 35 however, this writer believes there is one more season left in the YAK, and it should be played in the NPFL. Imagine the YAK playing home games(yes, even only home games) for MFM FC or Enyimba, with his face plastered across match day billboards and his name the key marketing element to sell the games. Without trying, the YAK should bring in an extra 2000 fans every match day, and if he adds goals to his game(which I very well expect), a fan cult for the select club might just have been born.

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Carlos Tevez, after guiding Juventus to a league title and a Champions League final finish made the decision to return to his boyhood club, Boca Juniors. Tevez was greeted by 40,000 plus fans on arrival and for the period he wore the Boca shirt, it was deemed an everyday carnival by the fans.


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Fan fare greeted Joseph Yobo's initial decision to play for an NPFL club after calling time on his career, a move that however never materialized. Now imagine we had Joseph Yobo for a season and YAK for a season. Imagine we have Kalu Uche and Ikechukwu Uche for a season, an Osazee Odewinge for a season, an Obafemi Martins for even a match day, a Vincent Enyeama homecoming to Enyimba, and an Utaka for a season.

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The place of our established names in Nigerian folklore remains undisputed and the NPFL will be the better for it if we get them to play a handful of games before they eventually hang up their boots. Dear YAK, put on your boot, it is a call to national service, howbeit not on the famous green and white of the Super Eagles.   




Comments

  1. Guidottisales22 November 2017 at 23:23

    Yakubu had a wonderful professional career unfortunately some will remember him for his famous world cup miss|| though not alien to good strikers. I also believe that having him in the NPFL will do the league good.

    ReplyDelete

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