Bayern Munich of Germany’s Nigerian-born striker, Joshua Orobosa Zirkzee has recounted how he missed out on a possible move to Everton of England, before finally settling for an offer than has now seen him get his professional breakthrough with The Bavarians.
Megasportsarena.com learnt that Zirkzeee could have beaten Alex Iwobi to the feat of becoming the next Nigerian to star for The Toffees, after Daniel Amokachi, Yakubu Aiyegbeni, Victor Anichebe and Joseph Ikpo Yobo, but he recalls that the offer he got at Goodison Park was not good enough.
That was in spite of some appearances he made for the Merseyside club during a period of trials with the team, as he played several test games with The Toffees and was offered a contract, but the 18-year-old Zirkzee says he ultimately decided on better prospects with Bayern.
Born in Holland on May 22, 2001 to a Nigerian mother, Zirkzee is now a highly-promising Dutch youth international, who left the academy of Feyenoord in his country of birth in mid-2017 to join the youth project at Bayern Munich.
On March 1, 2019, Zirkzee scored a hat-trick in his debut for Bayern’s second team and, a day later, he scored the winning goal for the under-19 side in a 2-1 victory over FC Nürnberg, then made his professional debut in the 3. Liga for Bayern Munich II on July 20, 2019, as a substitute in the 74th minute for Oliver Batista Meier away to Würzburger Kickers.
On December 11, 2019, Zirkzee got his debut for Bayern’s main team against Tottenham Hotspur in a last group match of the UEFA Champions League, after which he made his Bundesliga debut on December 18 as a 90th minute a substitute versus SC Freiburg.
With the scoreline standing at 1–1, Zirkzee scored the winner almost immediately after entering the game and, two days later, he again got off the bench in the final minutes of their next game against VfL Wolfsburg and scored the winning goal for Bayern.
However, the youngster, who scored twice in his first two games for Bayern, admitted he could have instead been running around in an Everton shirt, as current Holland coach, Ronald Koeman, who was then in charge of The Toffees, offered trials to the then 16-year-old Dutch prospect.
Zirkzee told Voetbal International: “Everton was a serious option for me at the time. Ronald Koeman was the professional coach at the time and they didn’t have that many strikers. Romelu Lukaku had just switched to Manchester United and I believed that there was a good chance of being promoted from the youth to the professionals.
“After I first trained with Bayern, I knew that’s who I wanted to join. I told myself, let me do three sessions – then I’ll decide if I’m good enough. They told me I have the quality, but also that they wanted to work on my conditioning, among other things. They’ve been true to their word. I want to become the main striker at Bayern – that’s always been my objective.”
