Nigerian Wing Wizard Odion Ajayi on a Mission to More Greatness with the Black Devils News

Navigation: Home / News / Columnists / Nigerian Wing Wizard Odion Ajayi on a Mission to More Greatness with the Black Devils

Nigerian Wing Wizard Odion Ajayi on a Mission to More Greatness with the Black Devils

By Daily Sports on July 2, 2019

One of the finest wingers of Nigerian decent in Europe, Odion Ajayi, has joined Romanian first division club Astra Giurgiu on a two-year deal.

Ajayi, 24, had been keeping himself in shape in Benin City for some weeks after completing a successful time at Croatian first division side Inter Zaprezic when an urgent call came to him from Astra, one of the big clubs of the Romanian league whose new manager Dan Alexa had seen videos of him playing and requested he be brought to the beautiful and historical city of Giurgiu for discussions as soon as possible.

Negotiations went smoothly quickly and Ajayi signed the dotted lines to become an Astra player June 19 after passing his medical.

It's not difficult to understand why Alexa was desperate to get Ajayi. The guy is a precocious talent whose pace, dribbling and overall vision are delights to watch.

The former Abuja college player had been wowing watchers in Benin City a few weeks ago during his post-season Holliday. He joined grassroots club Osabu FC of Benin City in training and showed his terrific form, helping the club to beat BJ Foundation (one of Nigeria’s best grassroots clubs) 3-2 at the latter’s home ground in a high profile friendly that drew hundreds of fans at BJ’s Arinze training ground.

His repertoire of skills were visible in that game, taking on BJ's defenders like a man on fire.

The player is at his peak physically now and Astra (nicknamed The Black Devils) would hope he would help them to get back to continental football after the club finished 4th last season in the Romanian premier league and missed out of qualifying for the Europa league consequently.

“My goal is to help Astra get back to Europe this season. We have a new team and we’ve been working hard in preseason. I’m excited.”

Astra and Ajayi are currently in Slovenia for preseason in preparation for the kick-off of the Romanian league early July, but it's the serene town of Giurgui in the South of Romania that the player will call home for the foreseeable future.

Astra plays its home matches in Giurgiu at the Marin Anastasovici Stadium, which has a current capacity of approximately 8,500 spectators

Already Ajayi, who is the elder brother of Watford of England star Isaac Success, has been impressed with the town and the club’s home ground.

“It’s good for me here so far. The city is an old historical one and I feel I will enjoy it here as well as the club’s stadium,” the soft-spoken Ajayi says.

It helps his aclamitisation in Romania that Ajayi has been in Eastern Europe since 2013 when he left Nigeria for Croatian first division side Rijeka, with short loan spells with Bosnian side Siroki Brijeg in 2016-17 and Israeli club Hapoel Ashkelon (2017-18) to follow before a return to Croatia for the 2018-19 season with Inter Zaprezic.

For the young man, it’s been quite a journey from the tough conditions of grassroots football some years ago in Benin City including dodging bullets at grassroots matches.

He spoke a few weeks ago about these conditions.

“There was a tournament my youth club participated in in the outskirts of Benin. There were gunshots from nowhere and it missed my head by whiskers.

“Even though we won tournaments then, we got very little financial compensation.

“Then of course we were victims of fraudsters, many of whom promised to take us places at the start.”

Now, it’s a whole different world for him and he's ready to grab this opportunity and improve on his trademark brilliance from the flanks that has seen him catch the eye of many over the years and hopefully an even bigger club and deal as well as international appearances with Nigeria’s Super Eagles won’t be far away.

Ajayi