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Nigerian international and 23 year old midfielder, Ogenyi Eddy Onazi has disclosed that if not for football, he would have been a gospel artiste.
Onazi who recently moved to Turkey from Lazio FC of Italy declared his love for music while he disclosed the secret behind the customised Bible verse on his boots.
“Well, if I don’t play football, I think I will go into gospel music because that has been my passion right from small; football-music,” he confessed Planet Sport FA.
“I listen to all gospel music, provided the music is a very good music and enjoyable-good instrumentation, good sound,” he said, adding that, “If you see me in my car or when I’m going for a match, I get a good sound system where I can listen to good music because when I listen to instrumentation of music it gives me another moral that is why we listen to music before we play football.”
The Super Eagles midfielder added that, “If you see my football boots, the place where they write my name, you always see Psalm 23 or Psalm 17 on my boots that has always been my favourite verse in the Bible, it tells you everything about God and how God is going to be with you forever.”
Born on Christmas day in Jos, the Plateau State capital, north central Nigeria, Onazi began playing football in the streets of Jos in 1998. His skills and abilities drew a lot of attention to him and brought the opportunity to play in some academies in the tin city.
He represented Nigeria at age16 at the 2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup, where Nigeria finished runners-up. However, two years later, he failed to make the team at a selection ahead of the 2011 FIFA U-20 World Cup, despite participating in the training camps in Portugal and Panama.
Finally, he made his debut for the senior national team; the Super Eagles in an African Cup of Nations qualification match against Liberia. His first goal came in his second international match, a 3–1 friendly win over Venezuela in Florida.
Onazi came up as a substitute during Nigeria’s 23-man squad team for the 2003 Africa Cup of Nations in Nigeria’s first match of the tournament against Burkina Faso, the nation they faced again in the final.
He was selected for Nigeria’s squad at the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup but missed out of the tournament as he suffered a slight knee knock a few weeks before the competition.
He was named in Nigeria’s final squad for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil and started in all four games as Nigeria were eliminated by France in the round of 16.
*By Dayo Emmanuel & Kolawole Kuyoro with Agency Report
