Former Super Eagles striker Victor Agali has shared the inside story of how he discovered Maduka Okoye for Nigeria, recalling that the goalkeeper initially expressed interest in representing Nigeria's youth teams rather than the Super Eagles.
Gernot Rohr, then head coach of the Super Eagles, was considering Okoye as a solution to the goalkeeping crisis that had affected the national team following Carl Ikeme's forced retirement due to illness.
At the time, the dual-national player was Fortuna Düsseldorf's reserve team goalkeeper.
Okoye was called up to Nigeria's Olympic team for an U23 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Libya in 2019 but did not make his debut due to club engagements.
His debut for the Super Eagles came unexpectedly as he was introduced off the bench to replace an injured Francis Uzoho in a high-profile friendly against Brazil in October 2019, having been an unused substitute the previous month against Ukraine.
Agali explained that his role as a scout for the Super Eagles involved tracking eligible talents across Europe, often in collaboration with coaches and football contacts he had built over the years.
"When I was a Super Eagles scout, people had their players that they wanted to come into the Super Eagles," Agali said on the Home Turf Podcast.
"I scouted Maduka Okoye. I was with his father in Düsseldorf; I was in the stadium watching him keep for the second team in Germany.
"At that time, the coach of Fortuna Düsseldorf was my coach in Hansa Rostock, so I went to see the game. The coach was there as well because normally coaches of the first team go to see games in the second team."
The 2000 Olympic Games star continued: "And I speak German very well. He said he was Nigerian, so after the game, I spoke with the father. The boy came to me, and we were having goalkeeper issues at that time.
"The father said I should speak to him, and the boy (Maduka) said yes, he would love to, but not the Super Eagles. The boy didn’t say Super Eagles. He was young; U17 and U20, he was ready.
"I spoke to Gernot about it, that there was a young goalkeeper at Fortuna Düsseldorf’s second team. Gernot then reached out to the coach, spoke with the boy: 'Listen, I cannot bring you in if you are not playing in the top flight', so the boy was loaned to a top-flight club in the Netherlands."
Okoye became cap-tied to Nigeria after featuring in an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Sierra Leone in November 2020.
Ifeanyi Emmanuel
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