Lille Metropole of France striker, Victor Osimhen has come out with an emotional message about October, as the Super Eagles’ rookie says it was the month in which his mother died, megasportsarena.com reports.
Osimhen used the start of the new month on Tuesday, which was also Nigeria’s 59th celebration of Independence Day, to reflect on his early days, in which he recounted how things were tough for him and his siblings when their mother passed on.
The 20-year-old former VfL Wolfsburg of Germany and Sporting Charleroi of Belgium hitman, who is now waxing hot among the top scorer in the French Ligue 1, recounted further how his father also toiled to make the family move ahead, and confessed that he personally struggled to fight his way to the top in his chosen career.
He took his mind back to his days of growing up in Olusosun area of Oregun-Ojota in Lagos, where he admitted it was a huge task in survival for him and his family, but acknowledged that he was imbued with several experiences that shaped his mentality about life and helped him build himself up as a player for the future.
He went on to top score at Chile 2015 FIFA U17 World Cup, where he became the Cadet Mundial’s highest goals getter ever, while also leading Nigeria to a fifth title in the competition’s history, which he noted was the turning point in his enter life and a boost for his family’s status.
Osimhen told France Football: “Part of my life has been a struggle to survive. But that’s all I am today in the end. It’s hard to classify all but each event has created my personality. I lost my mom in October. I do not even remember the year. I was small.
‘Three months later, my father lost his job. It was very hard for our family. My brother sold sports newspapers, my sister, oranges in the street and me, bottled water in Lagos in the middle of the traffic. We have to survive so we stick together.
“In the evening, we were all together and we gathered the money on the table. We gave everything to our big sister and she made food and organized everything. Where I grew up, people live on the other side of an open dump.
“With my friends, we went there every Friday or Sunday to find crampons and shoes. We stayed there for a long time. It was funny! We saw it as a game but when you think about it… It was always a fight. We were looking for crampons.
“Sometimes you see, you found yourself with a Nike on the right foot and then you start looking for the other foot … And finally, you find the left foot and it’s a Reebok! My sister patched everything up and it was good. It was survival.”
