Crotone of Italy striker, Simeon Tochukwu Nwankwo continues making waves with his Italian Serie A club, even as he keeps pace with two of Nigeria’s biggest scorers of the moment, Paul Ebere Onuachu from Racing Genk of Belgium and Umar Sadiq at UD Almeria of Spain.
Megasportsarena.com reports that such it was this past weekend again that all three in-form hitmen struck targets with their respective clubs, as if to declare that they are bent on going the whole hog in what is fast turning into a goals scoring challenge among them.
While ‘Simy’ hit the bull’s eye in Italy, Sadiq and Onuachu were also both on target for the second game running to help their respective cubs to victories in the Spanish lower division LaLiga SmartBank and Belgian top-flight league First Division A on Sunday night.
Sadiq was on song at Estadi Municipal de Montilivi, where he gave Almeria the lead after connecting a through ball and the goal was eventually awarded following a video assistant referee (VAR) review.
The former AS Roma of Italy, Glasgow Rangers of Scotland and Partizan Belgrade of Serbia tall striker’s 72nd minute strike was his 22nd goal of the season and the Rio 2016 Olympic Games bronze medalist is just four behind top scoring Onuachu.
Umar, who also has seven assists this season, which he started with Partizan Belgrade before moving to Almeria in the summer, will, however, have to keep firing hot on all cylinders if in order to meet Onuachu, who was again on song in a 2-0 win for Genk at Luminus Arena.
Onuachu’s 26th goal of the campaign helped Genk defeat Ike Ugbo’s Cercle Brugge, with the former FC Midtjylland of Denmark giant opening scoring in the ninth minute, as he smashed in a header from a free-kick floated into the box by Theo Bongonda.
In taking his tally to 26 goals in all competitions, Onuachu put light between himself and Simy, but the Crotone star has now hit double figures in goals for the first time in the Italian Serie A after bagging a brace in a 4-2 hammering of Torino at Stadio Ezio Scida on Sunday evening.
Simy, whose haul of 10 goals has come in 26 appearances, as he netted in the 27th minute with yet another penalty that gave Crotone the lead, after which he restored The Pythagoreans’ advantage in the 54th minute after Rolando Mandragora leveled just before halftime.
The former Portimonense and Gil Vicente of Portugal tall attacker, who last played for Nigeria against Argentina at Russia 2018, has impressed individually for struggling Crotone, who remain rooted to the bottom of the Serie A table with 15 points from 26 games.
It is now a personal highpoint for Simy, who scored 10 goals combined across his two previous seasons in the Serie A – 2016/17 and 2017/18 – but his current tally has already equaled that mark, despite having played 18 games less so far this term and still counting.
