Southampton of England’s Nigerian-born striker, Michael Obafemi has disclosed how thrilled he was to hit his club’s winning goal in their Boxing Day victory against Chelsea, which he says was a dream come true for him in the English Premier League, megasportsarena.com reports.
Although he has not been able to play as many matches as he would have loved to get this term, after shooting to limelight with an equally breathtaking goal last term, the lad born in London but now a youth international with Republic of Ireland said he has a promising future ahead.
That future looks dramatic, when considered on the backdrop of his early days as sprinter in athletics during his school days, such that the was already being primed for a career in track and field, until the hand of fate turned him away towards the round leather game.
Before then, it had been athletics all the way in his mid-teens, as he was crowned the fastest boy in his borough with a time of 10.8 seconds, which was faster than the time recorded when Dina Asher-Smith broke her own British Championship record with 10.96sec in August 2019.
But none is talking about sprints for Obafemi any longer, as he opened his EPL account against Huddersfield Town in December 2018, when he was just 18 years and 169 days old – which made him the youngest English Premier League scorer in the history of the club and his country.
His latest football heroics came on Boxing Day, when he helped The Saints secure valuable three points away at Stamford Bridge, as the youngster, who stopped playing for a year after being released by Watford, hit his second Premier League goal — and his first for more than a year.
With the burly dark-skinned lad back into the spotlight, Obafemi said he wants to emulate the stream of talent that has passed through Southampton in recent years, with the club’s legendary ability to nurture top-rated stars like Theo Walcott, Gareth Bale, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Adam Lallana already a big factor that convinced him to join them from Leyton Orient in 2016.
The Saint’s boss, Ralph Hasenhuttl has given Obafemi and other young players crucial game time even as the club battle to stay in the Premier League and, after an injury-ravaged year, he is so much firmly back in the manager’s plans, with many role models to look up to, gain inspiration from and try to outdo, while a last game of 2019 will serve as a reference point moving forward.
Obafemi, who is not 20 until July, declared: “It was a sweet feeling. To get such an important goal for the team was incredible. It was a huge win for us. I was so happy for Nathan, too, as he has been a big influence for me.
“I want to carry on going, make my family proud and do as much as I can. I remember when I was at nursery all the other kids used to ride bicycles around, but I just sprinted round in circles. I think that’s when I knew I was fast.
“’When I was sprinting, she was like: “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s Michael Obafemi! We used to do little 100m races and I remember on my sports day, we had like an announcer. I never trained. I used to just turn up. That was until football became his sole focus.”
