Tottenham Hotspur of England youth team goalkeeper, Joshua Oluwayemi quickly put a call through to his mentor, David Doherty, immediately after he got an invitation to the Super Eagles’ camp, megasportsarena.com reports.
Oluwayemi, who has starred for England at youth national team levels but recently restated his desire for a long future with Nigeria’s senior squad, was excited with his late call-up in place of Ikechukwu Ezenwa.
He will now tussle with two other keepers, John Noble and Stanley Nwabili, for the Super Eagles’ starting short in Saturday’s friendly against Mexico in Los Angeles, USA, ahead of which he started making early plans for a heroic impact.
Oluwayemi’s first step on confirming his invitation for Saturday’s game in LA and his first ever senior national team invitation, was to put a call through to Doherty, who is also the team manager of a selection of Nigerian-born players based in the Great Britain.
The boss of Team Nigeria UK acknowledged that it is a massive step forward for the 20-year-old shot-stopper, who comes from a family of goalkeepers, as his father, Abiodun Ogunyemi, was a netminder at Ogun State University, while his brother, Tobi is also a youth team keeper at Glasgow Celtic of Scotland.
Tottenham’s former coach, Jose Mourinho promoted Oluwayemi to first-team training towards the end of last season, after Alfie Whiteman took surgery on a ruptured meniscus and, though he was basically registered with Spurs’ U23s in the English Premier League 2, he got up close with the main squad.
Oluwayemi was there when Spurs battled Manchester United and Newcastle United in the second half of last season and the lad, who was born in London, is eligible to represent England, Nigeria and Grenada.
Doherty has, however, disclosed how excited the lad was with Nigeria’s call and, though he has played for England at U15 and U16 levels, his attention is now fully focused on Nigeria, as the mentor added: “It is true that Oluwayemi has been invited for the Mexico friendly. He just informed me.”
