One of the shock of the German Bundesliga this season is the elevation of 21 year old goalkeeper Noah Atubolu to the position of first choice at Freiburg considering the fact that he didn’t make a single appearance last season, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Last season even for the first team , he was in and out of their matchday squad making his rise to the position of first choice more remarkable. In total he has kept goal in seven games for the first team, four of which came this season.
For Freiburg II he has been the undisputed first choice for a while. Two weeks ago in the game against Werder Bremen precisely, a close up shot displayed the Nigerian flag on his gloves during the course of the 1-0 win. His first clean sheet in the Bundesliga.
Search showed that in 2019, he was among the goalkeepers of Nigerian descent who met with former coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Gernot Rohr during a visit to Germany, the other been Maduka Okoye who has since claimed 16 senior caps for Nigeria.
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Atubolu was asked about the approach by Nigeria and he confirmed saying the idea of. Nigeria was proposed to him by Rohr, while playing for Freiburg II in the same league as Okoye which is the fifth division in Germany.
” I had the chance of playing for Nigeria after meeting with the coach in 2019 and it’s an option I can’t rule out in the future”, he said in 2020 when he got his first call up to the U21 of Ghana.
His recent status as a goalkeeper in a top flight league makes it probably the best time to revisit his case particularly with no Nigerian goalkeeper currently playing at that level.
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman
