Crotone of Italy striker, Simeon Tochukwu Nwankwo (Simy) was Nigeria’s biggest news maker in Sunday’s line-up of league matches across Europe, as he netted yet another brace of goals for his club in the Italian Serie A, megasportsarena.com reports.
However, while Simy continues swirling in a ray of personal and individual glory, his club are still finding the going tough in their first season back in Italy’s top-flight league, as they remain last on the log and look very likely to be heading back to Serie B at the end of this season.
While Simy has now netted six goals in 18 matches this season, Crotone remain rooted bottom of the standings, despite recording their third win of the campaign, yet the players, coaches, officials, management and fans would take delight in the joy of the moment.
The lanky attacker, who played for Nigeria at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, ended up being named man of the match with two goals in open play as well as an assist for Crotone to beat Benevento 4-1 in Sunday’s Serie A fixture.
The former Portugal-based hitman first forced an error in the early stages of the encounter as Kamil Glik’s own goal gave the home side an early lead and followed up the strike with two goals on either side of the half to make it 3-0, after which Milos Vulic made it 4-0.
Iago Falque scored a consolation goal for Benevento from the edge of the box, as Simy took his tally to six in the Italian top-flight, but Crotone remain bottom of the log with 12 points while their fellow-Serie A returnees sit 11th with 21 points.
It means Simy is now the top Nigerian scorer on the books of a European top-five league club, surpassing Taiwo Awoniyi, who has five goals for Union Berlin in the German Bundesliga, but they both he the same number of assists – two in total.
Racing Genk of Belgium striker, Paul Ebere Onuachu, however, remains the outright top scoring Nigerian player overall in the European football leagues so far this season, as he has netted 19 goals from 20 appearances in the Belgian First Division A.
In Portugal, Godwin Saviour was the match winner for Casa Pia, as they won away to Varzim and climbed into the top half of the Portuguese second division log, with his effort on Sunday being his third goal in eight appearances for the Lisbon-based outfit.
In Spain, Sadiq Umar notched a brace to propel UD Almeria to the round of 16 in Copa del Rey with a big win over Alaves, and the in-form attacker has now scored 11 goals in all competitions since his arrival in Spain in the summer from Partizan Belgrade of Serbia.
