Manchester City of England youth team player, Tai Sodje has received a strong push from his uncle, former Super Eagles center back, Sam Sodje for him to play a ‘big part’ in future trappings with Nigeria’s national team, megasportsarena.com.
Although Sam Sodje did not have a long or highly successful spell with the Eagles, unlike his older brother, Efe, who played for the team at the 2002 World Cup in Korea/Japan, he has backed their young nephew to fare better in green-and-white.
He went on to outline the approach the youngster should take in becoming a full-fledged Nigerian international, while also promising to play some key roles in making the prospect become a reality.
The third member of the renowned Sodje trio of football playing brothers, whose first sibling, Bright, was a successful England international rugby player, added that he will do everything to convince Tai, who also happens to be his godson, to commit his international future to Nigeria.
That would amount to snubbing his country of birth, but Sam says that is exactly what he wants for the young Tai, who has already set tongues wagging with 17 goals in 16 matches for Man City’s youth team and is the outright leading scorer in this season’s U18 Premier League.
England’s Football Association have also started making frenetic moves to hand him a call-up to one of their youth teams, considering that the lad was born and raised in Queensland and he has friends in The Young Lions’ setup, but Sam Sodje insists it is Nigeria all the way for his nephew.
Sodje told allnigeriasoccer.com: “When it comes to Tai, all Tai talks about is he has been brought up in England, but he’s got uncles and his dad is Nigerian so he’s got a big part of him that he’s Nigerian. He’s my godson, I speak to him every time and I have told him how special it is for him to play for Nigeria and I ‘m sure he loves to play for Nigeria.
“Tai’s mom is English, his dad is Nigerian, he’s got uncles who played for Nigeria. It’s different for Tai, he has never been to Nigeria, while I grew up in Nigeria even though I was born in London, I kind of knew I was going to play for Nigeria.
“All I want to do is sometime bring him to Nigeria, visit Nigeria, visit the national team and see how passionate the fans are and I’m sure he’ll buy into it. He’s fully Nigerian but mom is English so he has a chance to play for England but my own view Nigeria is going to be his destination, hopefully.”
