The new coaching team Emmanuel Amunike & Augustine Eguavoen are fired up for the duel with Ghana and are going all out! At least on paper, they were able to celebrate the first success: With a lot of persuasions, they managed to win a star from the English Premier League for the Nigerian team. The Sub20 World Champion Ademola Lookman is currently along with Kelechi Iheanacho in the team of Leicester City. He will play for Nigeria in the enormously important World Cup play-off.
Ademola Lookman has parents from Nigeria
The winger is still under contract with german giants RB Leipzig but is currently playing on loan for Leicester City. He is likely to move to Leicester permanently in the summer. He has decided now to play for Nigeria, the home country of his parents. Lookman was born and raised in England himself.
In 2017 he became Sub20 World Champion in South Korea for England alongside Dominic Calvert-Levin, Dominic Solanke or Sheyi Ojo. But the path to England’s national team is currently too big for Lookman. The competition in his position is too great (Sterling, Grealish, Sancho, Rashford, and many others.). But so far Ademola Lookman is playing a very good season. He will certainly strengthen the Super Eagles for the important match against Ghana.
Emmanuel Dennis will return to the Super Eagles
One of Lookman’s English Premier League colleagues is also surprisingly back in the line-up. Watford FC centre-forward Emmanuel Dennis was involved in 52% of his side’s goals this season. He did not participate in the Africa Cup of Nations.
On the attacking side, Napoli star Viktor Osimhen, Leicester attacker Kelechi Iheanacho and Villareal’s Samuel Chukwueze are also in the squad. The attack is the best defence: With so much offensive power, Nigeria is probably favourites to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar.
Even as a child, I used to bet on the results of the Bundesliga with my friends at school. Back then, the stakes were still modest: Lunch, a few marbles or maybe even a milk jug. When I was 9 years old, I once played the German "Elferwette" (1x2 tips in 11 German games) - and got 10 right the first time.
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By Max Stargard
Even as a child, I started typing the results of the Bundesliga with my friends at school. The stakes were modest back then: The lunch, a few marbles or maybe a milk slice. Then, at the age of 9, I played the penalty bet once - and immediately got 10 right. The previous week I had won 500 DM and in my childish imagination I was already imagining how many football pictures I could buy at the kiosk on the corner. Unfortunately, it was one of those match days when everything turned out as expected and I only won DM 8.10. Nevertheless, I followed the game with great interest.
Nevertheless, the passion to correctly predict the outcome of sporting events haunted me for the rest of my life. I would have loved to own the sports almanac that Marty McFly bought in Back to the Future II.
Much later, when I was already working as a journalist for newspapers and as a writer for television, I came across an international betting forum with over 100,000 members - and found out that a lot of people there were giving their tips on German football, but nobody seemed to have a real clue, so I wrote a few English-language preliminary reports with a few tips - and was right about everything. After that, an avalanche started. I got offers from bookmakers, sports papers and even betting syndicates to work for them - and I accepted a few of them too, experiencing the ups & downs of sports betting and travelling halfway around the world in the years that followed. There I met Chinese multimillionaires betting five to six figures, amateur players in Serbia or Turkey supporting their families with small stakes, South Africans gambling away half their fortune, Brazilians who could only leave their favelha and become rich by making the right tips. At one point my life was similar to Matthew McCaughaney's in the film Two For The Money - and far too much stress.
I subsequently moved to another continent and ran an English-language football epaper about the Bundesliga from there. After the birth of my son, I devoted myself for many years only to artistic projects in the field of photography and literature. However, I am happy to share my knowledge and passion with the readers of bettingtipsafrica.
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