Rio 2016 Olympic Games bronze medalist, Sadiq Umar has become the latest Nigerian player, after John Ugochukwu Ogu, Ramon Azeez and Chidozie Awaziem to play for UD Almeria of Spain, after the modest club officially announced his signing from Partizan Belgrade of Serbia, megasportsarena.com reports.
Almeria made the announcement late Monday, after the 23-year-old striker put pen to paper on a five-year contract that will keep him at Los Rojiblancos until the end of the 2024/25 season, which marks a new chapter in the itineraries of the Football College Abuja product, who first shot to limelight while playing for AS Roma of Italy five years ago.
The tall attacker, who has previously played on loan at Spezia of Italy and Glasgow Rangers of Scotland, opted to join Almeria despite being linked with a number of top clubs in Europe, after catching the eye with his top form for Partizan in the immediate past season, as he struck home 17 goals and provided 17 assists across 39 matches in all competitions.
He has already gone on to prove that his performance last term was no fluke, having registered six goals in 10 matches so far this season in the Serbian Super Liga and the soft-spoken lad, who has also previously played for Lavagnese, Bologna, Torino and Perugia of Italy as well as NAC Breda of Holland, was joint-top scorer for Nigeria at the 2016 Olympics, where he got four goals.
For the rest of the 2020/21 season, Sadiq will wear Almeria’s jersey number nine, as he aims to confirm himself among the world’s fastest growing striker and eventually get a long overdue yet always expected invitation to the Super Eagles to boot.
