₦airaland Forum

my point is that the team is too small. imagine lagerback that don't know much about eagles, so on his first game he pairs yobo and someone, how is he going to know that yobo is no more good when we are playing saudi arabia, i douth if saudi would even have any dhot on goal

knice without mikel we have haruna lukman, and i would bet anybody, on his current form lukman is a better player than 150 games no goals. kalu uche can be a good player too, if he can play th way he played against france and ireland he is also good replacement for mikel

megashritt who has bad belle, have you ever seen me talk bad about osaze,obasi,ike uche why, because they are good players but mikel lai lai. just look at yakubu aiyebenni do you know that it was shaibu amodu thta took aiyebenni to isreal, amodu even made 200,000 from yakubu deal so he was repaying him in nations cup by playing yakubu. just the way i researched that and found who knows may be mikel even gives amodu money, because siasia would not tolerate his sidepass/back pass type of football.

chidicris, you say mikel is our next captain, i say lai la that won cannot happen. so we should give mikel captain for missing nigeria games and disobeying siasia, or we should give mikel captain for playing 150 games and not scoring any goal. who can mikel even inspire in nigeria, yes he probably can inspire people on how to pass the ball sideways and backwards. just look at lukman, he plays as a support striker,defensive midfilder but he scores goals and attack he is better than mikel. remember is not about where you play for, but it is about how good you are. playing for a big club would not be a big deal if the player keeps playing bad all the time

ohh sorry, my fault. but on a real note how can mikel be anyone top 5 best nigeria player. a player that is useless and have not scored in 150games

hope this useless mikel is watching and leaning from lukman, mikel has played 150 games for chelsea, but all he has done is to pass the ball sideways and backwards, while lukman have already scored 4 goals 2 world class goals. in lukman last game he played as a holding midfilder, but he kept on dribbling,attacking and shooting playing well so people should not use mikel playing dm as a result of him not scoring goals

bbiob and iyeneda the 2 of you guys are plain stupid, what an ignorant statement to make. when does 2 wrongs make a right, world cup draw was made since december 4 and yet nff could not find a big team, is saudi arabia we want to play, a team that germany wire 8-0.

haruna lukman scored a world class goal again from about 25 yards, in terms of performance by our midfilders this season him and kalu uche has been the best. lagerback should better not drop lukman for any of those useless defensive midfilders

Football Agents : Barry Silkman

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I know it's the NotW, but f*cking hell, he`s a tw@t of the highest order, especially that Sir Bobby Robson remark

Poor Silkman, only got £20k out of the Toure deal? The deal between Arsenal and his youth team was worth about £150k, so I would say he's done well enough out of it.

He says himself, hes a multi-millionaire. So what has he got to complain about?

Absolute scumbag. Goes without saying really.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/2303, _scandal.shtml

I told Sir Bobby Robson: I hope your cancer spreads
and you f****** suffer for f****** years



LAST WEEK we exposed the scandal of the £65,000 that went missing when Yakubu moved from Julius Berger in Nigeria to Israel's Maccabi Haifa.

The man at the centre of the deal was agent Barry Silkman who claims he has done nothing wrong.




But in a series of taped conversations with chief football writer ROB BEASLEY, (right) Silkman reveals in his own words the foul-mouthed contempt in which he appears to hold FIFA's rules on transfers and how he sickeningly abused one of the most revered figures in the game.


"I got f***ed by Newcastle and I ended up taking them to court. I settled for 25 grand when they owed me 100 grand.

"I took a player (Acuna) there (Newcastle) on trial. His club wanted $2.5m but I said don't pay it because they have got to sell the player.

"He ended up signing for 900 grand and yet they (Newcastle) still f****d me. Bobby Robson was my first manager at Fulham. I'd always kept in contact and I said ‘Bob how could you let them f*** me?'

"You know what he said? ‘You don't count. I'm the only one that counts. That's your hard luck."

"So you know what I said to him? I said: ‘I have a wife and a young daughter and a f*****g mortgage and you've turned round and said that to me.

"I said: ‘See that cancer on your nose? I hope it spreads all over your face and that you live a f*****g long, long, long life because the longer you live the more you will f*****g suffer.

Robson"‘There's only one God and he's looking down at us two now and he's saying ‘Whose side am I on?' And let me tell you, Bob, it ain't f*****g yours because I have never f****d anyone in my life. F*** knows how many people you have f****d', and I walked out.'"

Silkman negotiated with then Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd over his commission on the Acuna deal.

"Freddy Shepherd came on the phone to me and went over the deal with me. I said: ‘Do I get it in writing?' and he said, ‘Yes, you will have it in writing.'

"When I went to the lawyer, I had it all on tape. I sent the tape to a journalist, 17 minutes and 18 seconds of him (Shepherd) saying to me: ‘I will never do you up, I will always look after you, I'm not that type of person. If we are going to sign the player I promise you, I guarantee you you will get paid.'

"I had the conversation on the Saturday morning and they signed him (Acuna) on the Tuesday. I took him there on trial, I paid for everything but they (Newcastle) never even offered me the money I had laid out."

When Sport of the World confronted Silkman over the missing $170,000 from the deal which took Yakubu from Julius Berger to Maccabi Haifa, he claimed the money was pocketed by the former chairman of the Nigerian club, Chief Daniel Idama, who died earlier this year.

"We all know where it went. It went into five Nigerian pockets. You have got to go to Nigeria, to speak to the geezer who is dead.

"You will end up with a dead man. You will have to have a seance. I'm not defending it but what you're saying is ‘What a difference this could have made to Julius Berger.' But what the f*** has that got to do with anyone in England, what happens to some geezer in Nigeria?
Robbing

"Big deal. So what? Let's say, as an example, the chairman owns the club. The chairman has put $1m into the club and never had a penny, yeah? But all of a sudden he can do a deal where he says ‘F*** it, I can put $30,000 into the club and $170,000 into my pocket', so is he ripping himself off?

"Let's say I got 100 grand — which I didn't — for the Yakubu deal, well what a f*****g good deal I done!

"Because Maccabi Haifa made millions, Portsmouth made millions and Middlesbrough made millions.




"So if I had got 100 or 200 grand out of it, f*****g big deal. What a blinding favour he done, Barry Silkman. He got 200 grand and has earned us millions. What a blinding deal.

"Nobody made any complaints about the transfer. What happens if everybody had a million out of it? What's the problem with that?

"This is what I don't get, what's the problem with that? It's not robbing, Julius Berger got money out of it. You printed ‘Barry Silkman was well looked after, ' If I made the club £3m aren't I entitled to some money? The money I got from Yakubu was about one and a half per cent of his transfer fee — and half that money I paid to some c*** in South Africa. Big f*****g deal.

"I have earned everyone millions, and I have had £100,000 out of it. Big f*****g deal.

"Yakubu was 17 and he was on $100 a month. They (Julius Berger) had never had an offer for him in his life. The whole salary for the whole of the club was $40,000 a year and they got 600 people at their games. He (Yakubu) was playing in Nigeria and half the players leave there for nothing. So if someone offers $20,000 or $10,000, to them it is a fortune."

"Someone spoke to the geezer in Nigeria (current chairman, Kuti Adewale) and he says ‘We have been tricked.' But he wasn't even at the club, that fella. What the f*** does he know about nine years ago?

"If the owner of the club has taken the money has he cheated the club?

"If he can sell five players for £50m and decides to take $40m of it, who has he tricked? It is his club. Oh yeah (in England) it goes through the books. Yeah, we know, we're in England not in f*****g Nigeria.

"If someone says to me, ‘This money has gone missing in Nigeria', who the f*** is interested in that?

"No one's interested that someone in Nigeria has nicked some money."

Silkman claims he has documentation which proves he paid the money from the Yakuba deal to Amodu Shaibu, a representative of Julius Berger, after the transfer fee was wired to Silkman's bank account. As he admits, it was not signed by any witnesses. The bank gave me a bit of paper, and I put it in writing. I have found the original piece of paper signed in the bank in front of two bank people.

"I wrote it out in my hand and he (Shaibu) has signed and dated it. At the bottom I wrote ‘Receipt' and that was it. He (Shaibu) signed it.

"There were two people at the bank. I said: ‘Can you look while he signs it?' They just looked, but you don't think nothing's wrong. It was just people working in the bank."

"All I remember is that he (Shaibu) took all the money. He must have left me behind some money because if I paid for anything, I could claim it out of his commission.

"He must have said to me at the time: ‘Instead of giving me $200,000, you have got to give me $195,000 because you laid out this money.' I don't even remember."
Missing

"There's that letter saying (Julius Berger received) $30,000. When they got back, they have gone: ‘Oh f*** me, you have this, I'll have this, you have this. We will walk away with this and we will put this through the football club. That's why it (the fee for Yakubu) must have been changed. I suppose they wanted to stick the rest of the money in their bin (pocket)."

Incredibly, Silkman believes he has made a telling contribution to the fabric of English football.

"You should be praising me for Yakubu. The problem is, all the media has a problem with agents.

"They don't say: ‘What a fantastic job Barry Silkman has done. Without him, Yakubu would not be here, Mark Schwarzer wouldn't be here.

"If it wasn't for him (Silkman) Lucas Neill wouldn't be here. I don't have to say it because it is a fact. You should say this, not me. You are saying this, this, this, you should be saying it. You're on your f*****g high horse. No one puts it in the paper, no one even talks about that. They only talk about all agents take money, take money, take money. Ask Arsene Wenger about Kolo Toure. He had never f*****g heard of him till I sent him there.




"He's worth f*****g millions but I ended up with 20 f*****g poxy grand.

"Ask (Arsenal chief scout) Steve Rowley who put him on a plane to watch (Robin) Van Persie. Van Persie's worth millions while the agent got £9,000."

Silkman also claims he has nothing to fear from any possible investigation into the mystery surrounding the missing money from the Yakubu deal.

"Controversial I am, but I'm not a villain. I'm controversial, but I don't do anything that's wrong.

"I haven't done anything where a football club has come back and said ‘You know he has f****d us', but I have been f****d a lot of times.

"I don't care. I'm a multi-millionaire backed by a f*****g billionaire. I don't care, I don't give a f***. I have earned all the money straight, every f*****g penny I earned was straight.

"I have paid 40 per cent tax out on every penny I have ever f*****g earned every year so I don't give a f***."

"I have David Lampitt (FA compliance officer) coming in 10 or 12 days and he will be f*****g annihilated.

"If he even mentions Yakubu he will be thrown out the door because when the deal was done I was not under the jurisdiction of the FA.

"Let's say I nicked £1m out of the deal. I'm not under the jurisdiction of the FA, I wasn't licensed by the FA so how can the FA investigate the deal?

"Where the agent isn't licensed by the FA and the two clubs involved do not belong to the FA, it is illegal for them to investigate the deal.

"They can't even look at the f*****g deal, they can't investigate it because I was licenced in Switzerland, not England. It is illegal. It is the same as English police investigating a murder in Italy. They aren't allowed to look at the documents, so if they look at one document I'm suing."

Even business partners are not safe from Silkman's torrent of abuse as he details a conversation with a former associate.

"I sent him a text and I said, ‘(If) you ever, ever try to f*** me again, ever, If you come to England, I'll f***ing smash you right around the head. I absolutely f***ing annihilated him (muffled) and I said to him if you, ever, ever do that again, and you come back here I'll f***ing take you to court, get your passport confiscated, and I'll f***ing take you to court, you c***.'"

Earlier last week, Silkman told another newspaper he would be sueing the News of the World and claimed: "As a kid, my dad once told me that when you go to war with someone you have to make sure you are in the right and know who you are going to war with." On tape, he repeats that threat.

"Two million pounds has already been put into my account by the guy that is my backer and he's told me that's the amount of money I have to sue the News of the World."

BARRY SILKMAN expresses surprise agents are not held in greater esteem by the media and football fans in general.

After his wretched and foul-mouthed rantings on these pages, is it any wonder some of his kind are despised as parasites?

Rarely has one man shown such a lack of morality for football's conventions. Rarely has one man illustrated so vividly what is wrong with the sport.

Silkman talks a good game. He boasts how he will sue the News of the World for a seven-figure sum. We look forward to hearing from his lawyers.

But we look forward even more to the day when his kind are driven from the game. For good.

the first interview is about yakubu talking about life in nigeria and how he made it to isreal, it was amodu that took him there in 2002, he confirmed that. the second is about the deal in isreal also talking about how much amodu made in the yakubu deal in 2002. ever since yakubu has been playing bad and amodu kept on playing him, i knew that there was something shady well now i know amodu was repaying him by playing him every game. remember amodu made 170,000 dollars from yakubu deal in 2002. lars lagerback if you want to be succesful don't call up yakubu at all people use his premier league record to judge him for nigeria but the guy is rubbish.

lso read this


Football Agents : Barry Silkman

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I know it's the NotW, but f*cking hell, he`s a tw@t of the highest order, especially that Sir Bobby Robson remark

Poor Silkman, only got £20k out of the Toure deal? The deal between Arsenal and his youth team was worth about £150k, so I would say he's done well enough out of it.

He says himself, hes a multi-millionaire. So what has he got to complain about?

Absolute scumbag. Goes without saying really.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/2303, _scandal.shtml

I told Sir Bobby Robson: I hope your cancer spreads
and you f****** suffer for f****** years



LAST WEEK we exposed the scandal of the £65,000 that went missing when Yakubu moved from Julius Berger in Nigeria to Israel's Maccabi Haifa.

The man at the centre of the deal was agent Barry Silkman who claims he has done nothing wrong.




But in a series of taped conversations with chief football writer ROB BEASLEY, (right) Silkman reveals in his own words the foul-mouthed contempt in which he appears to hold FIFA's rules on transfers and how he sickeningly abused one of the most revered figures in the game.


"I got f***ed by Newcastle and I ended up taking them to court. I settled for 25 grand when they owed me 100 grand.

"I took a player (Acuna) there (Newcastle) on trial. His club wanted $2.5m but I said don't pay it because they have got to sell the player.

"He ended up signing for 900 grand and yet they (Newcastle) still f****d me. Bobby Robson was my first manager at Fulham. I'd always kept in contact and I said ‘Bob how could you let them f*** me?'

"You know what he said? ‘You don't count. I'm the only one that counts. That's your hard luck."

"So you know what I said to him? I said: ‘I have a wife and a young daughter and a f*****g mortgage and you've turned round and said that to me.

"I said: ‘See that cancer on your nose? I hope it spreads all over your face and that you live a f*****g long, long, long life because the longer you live the more you will f*****g suffer.

Robson"‘There's only one God and he's looking down at us two now and he's saying ‘Whose side am I on?' And let me tell you, Bob, it ain't f*****g yours because I have never f****d anyone in my life. F*** knows how many people you have f****d', and I walked out.'"

Silkman negotiated with then Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd over his commission on the Acuna deal.

"Freddy Shepherd came on the phone to me and went over the deal with me. I said: ‘Do I get it in writing?' and he said, ‘Yes, you will have it in writing.'

"When I went to the lawyer, I had it all on tape. I sent the tape to a journalist, 17 minutes and 18 seconds of him (Shepherd) saying to me: ‘I will never do you up, I will always look after you, I'm not that type of person. If we are going to sign the player I promise you, I guarantee you you will get paid.'

"I had the conversation on the Saturday morning and they signed him (Acuna) on the Tuesday. I took him there on trial, I paid for everything but they (Newcastle) never even offered me the money I had laid out."

When Sport of the World confronted Silkman over the missing $170,000 from the deal which took Yakubu from Julius Berger to Maccabi Haifa, he claimed the money was pocketed by the former chairman of the Nigerian club, Chief Daniel Idama, who died earlier this year.

"We all know where it went. It went into five Nigerian pockets. You have got to go to Nigeria, to speak to the geezer who is dead.

"You will end up with a dead man. You will have to have a seance. I'm not defending it but what you're saying is ‘What a difference this could have made to Julius Berger.' But what the f*** has that got to do with anyone in England, what happens to some geezer in Nigeria?
Robbing

"Big deal. So what? Let's say, as an example, the chairman owns the club. The chairman has put $1m into the club and never had a penny, yeah? But all of a sudden he can do a deal where he says ‘F*** it, I can put $30,000 into the club and $170,000 into my pocket', so is he ripping himself off?

"Let's say I got 100 grand — which I didn't — for the Yakubu deal, well what a f*****g good deal I done!

"Because Maccabi Haifa made millions, Portsmouth made millions and Middlesbrough made millions.




"So if I had got 100 or 200 grand out of it, f*****g big deal. What a blinding favour he done, Barry Silkman. He got 200 grand and has earned us millions. What a blinding deal.

"Nobody made any complaints about the transfer. What happens if everybody had a million out of it? What's the problem with that?

"This is what I don't get, what's the problem with that? It's not robbing, Julius Berger got money out of it. You printed ‘Barry Silkman was well looked after, ' If I made the club £3m aren't I entitled to some money? The money I got from Yakubu was about one and a half per cent of his transfer fee — and half that money I paid to some c*** in South Africa. Big f*****g deal.

"I have earned everyone millions, and I have had £100,000 out of it. Big f*****g deal.

"Yakubu was 17 and he was on $100 a month. They (Julius Berger) had never had an offer for him in his life. The whole salary for the whole of the club was $40,000 a year and they got 600 people at their games. He (Yakubu) was playing in Nigeria and half the players leave there for nothing. So if someone offers $20,000 or $10,000, to them it is a fortune."

"Someone spoke to the geezer in Nigeria (current chairman, Kuti Adewale) and he says ‘We have been tricked.' But he wasn't even at the club, that fella. What the f*** does he know about nine years ago?

"If the owner of the club has taken the money has he cheated the club?

"If he can sell five players for £50m and decides to take $40m of it, who has he tricked? It is his club. Oh yeah (in England) it goes through the books. Yeah, we know, we're in England not in f*****g Nigeria.

"If someone says to me, ‘This money has gone missing in Nigeria', who the f*** is interested in that?

"No one's interested that someone in Nigeria has nicked some money."

Silkman claims he has documentation which proves he paid the money from the Yakuba deal to Amodu Shaibu, a representative of Julius Berger, after the transfer fee was wired to Silkman's bank account. As he admits, it was not signed by any witnesses. The bank gave me a bit of paper, and I put it in writing. I have found the original piece of paper signed in the bank in front of two bank people.

"I wrote it out in my hand and he (Shaibu) has signed and dated it. At the bottom I wrote ‘Receipt' and that was it. He (Shaibu) signed it.

"There were two people at the bank. I said: ‘Can you look while he signs it?' They just looked, but you don't think nothing's wrong. It was just people working in the bank."

"All I remember is that he (Shaibu) took all the money. He must have left me behind some money because if I paid for anything, I could claim it out of his commission.

"He must have said to me at the time: ‘Instead of giving me $200,000, you have got to give me $195,000 because you laid out this money.' I don't even remember."
Missing

"There's that letter saying (Julius Berger received) $30,000. When they got back, they have gone: ‘Oh f*** me, you have this, I'll have this, you have this. We will walk away with this and we will put this through the football club. That's why it (the fee for Yakubu) must have been changed. I suppose they wanted to stick the rest of the money in their bin (pocket)."

Incredibly, Silkman believes he has made a telling contribution to the fabric of English football.

"You should be praising me for Yakubu. The problem is, all the media has a problem with agents.

"They don't say: ‘What a fantastic job Barry Silkman has done. Without him, Yakubu would not be here, Mark Schwarzer wouldn't be here.

"If it wasn't for him (Silkman) Lucas Neill wouldn't be here. I don't have to say it because it is a fact. You should say this, not me. You are saying this, this, this, you should be saying it. You're on your f*****g high horse. No one puts it in the paper, no one even talks about that. They only talk about all agents take money, take money, take money. Ask Arsene Wenger about Kolo Toure. He had never f*****g heard of him till I sent him there.




"He's worth f*****g millions but I ended up with 20 f*****g poxy grand.

"Ask (Arsenal chief scout) Steve Rowley who put him on a plane to watch (Robin) Van Persie. Van Persie's worth millions while the agent got £9,000."

Silkman also claims he has nothing to fear from any possible investigation into the mystery surrounding the missing money from the Yakubu deal.

"Controversial I am, but I'm not a villain. I'm controversial, but I don't do anything that's wrong.

"I haven't done anything where a football club has come back and said ‘You know he has f****d us', but I have been f****d a lot of times.

"I don't care. I'm a multi-millionaire backed by a f*****g billionaire. I don't care, I don't give a f***. I have earned all the money straight, every f*****g penny I earned was straight.

"I have paid 40 per cent tax out on every penny I have ever f*****g earned every year so I don't give a f***."

"I have David Lampitt (FA compliance officer) coming in 10 or 12 days and he will be f*****g annihilated.

"If he even mentions Yakubu he will be thrown out the door because when the deal was done I was not under the jurisdiction of the FA.

"Let's say I nicked £1m out of the deal. I'm not under the jurisdiction of the FA, I wasn't licensed by the FA so how can the FA investigate the deal?

"Where the agent isn't licensed by the FA and the two clubs involved do not belong to the FA, it is illegal for them to investigate the deal.

"They can't even look at the f*****g deal, they can't investigate it because I was licenced in Switzerland, not England. It is illegal. It is the same as English police investigating a murder in Italy. They aren't allowed to look at the documents, so if they look at one document I'm suing."

Even business partners are not safe from Silkman's torrent of abuse as he details a conversation with a former associate.

"I sent him a text and I said, ‘(If) you ever, ever try to f*** me again, ever, If you come to England, I'll f***ing smash you right around the head. I absolutely f***ing annihilated him (muffled) and I said to him if you, ever, ever do that again, and you come back here I'll f***ing take you to court, get your passport confiscated, and I'll f***ing take you to court, you c***.'"

Earlier last week, Silkman told another newspaper he would be sueing the News of the World and claimed: "As a kid, my dad once told me that when you go to war with someone you have to make sure you are in the right and know who you are going to war with." On tape, he repeats that threat.

"Two million pounds has already been put into my account by the guy that is my backer and he's told me that's the amount of money I have to sue the News of the World."

BARRY SILKMAN expresses surprise agents are not held in greater esteem by the media and football fans in general.

After his wretched and foul-mouthed rantings on these pages, is it any wonder some of his kind are despised as parasites?

Rarely has one man shown such a lack of morality for football's conventions. Rarely has one man illustrated so vividly what is wrong with the sport.

Silkman talks a good game. He boasts how he will sue the News of the World for a seven-figure sum. We look forward to hearing from his lawyers.

But we look forward even more to the day when his kind are driven from the game. For good.

read this


Jacob's ladderThe career of Nigeria's brilliant sharpshooter Yakubu Aiyegbeni continues on an upward curve. Now the man they call Jacob is the big threat to Manchester United's FA Cup survival hopes at The Riverside on Saturday
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Jamie Jackson The Observer, Sunday 4 March 2007 Article historyKano, north-east Nigeria, 1997. A trophy stands next to a parched football pitch as a team from Benin City line up for the final of a youth tournament. As the referee starts the game, Benin's 15-year-old striker eyes the shiny silverware. Only three years earlier, Yakubu Aiyegbeni had been playing barefoot in the streets, before his brother Eshibor gave him a first pair of boots. This, the first trip away from home, is the defining moment of his youth. 'I saw the cup and whispered to myself, "Oh!" And although we lost, I was happy. It was unbelievable to have the opportunity to go and play football somewhere.'

Ten years on, Yakubu stretches out on a sofa in his spacious new home in the English countryside, in picturesque Yarm in Teesside. The England manager, Steve McClaren, lives a penalty kick away. Outside is a gleaming black SUV. Scattered on the floor are DVDs of the Nigerian movies he has had sent from home. 'When I come back from training with Middlesbrough, I put on a film, lie here, and hit pause whenever I want a sleep,' he says in his gentle accent. 'I have about 30 I like to watch.'

Yakubu has made great progress since that youth tournament. He is established as one of Europe's best goal-scorers and it is the biggest clubs doing the watching now. On Saturday, Middlesbrough host Manchester United in the FA Cup quarter-final. If he scores, Yakubu will have made it four in five seasons against United. His numbers since he arrived in England are impressive: 53 in 124 Premiership games, not far off a goal every other game that defines the great finishers. As one of the very best not playing for one of the Champions League elite, Yakubu might find himself on the move to Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge or any of the continent's premier amphitheatres - maybe even this summer.

Sir Alex Ferguson is certainly a fan. 'If you've got a chance, hop in your car and get him now, Harry. He's electric,' was the United manager's advice to Harry Redknapp after Ferguson had the Nigeria international watched three times while he was at Maccabi Haifa.

Redknapp heeded those words and signed Yakubu on loan in January 2003. He was repaid with a goal four minutes into Yakubu's full debut against Grimsby, and seven in 13 league games, which helped propel Portsmouth into the Premiership. Ferguson, meanwhile, might regret not having signed Yakubu. Henrik Larsson, Ole Gunner Solskjaer and Alan Smith might all leave in the summer, and while Yakubu could be the ideal newcomer he would cost far more than the £7.5m Middlesbrough paid for him. Yakubu is certainly convinced of his ability to play against and for the best.

'I really believe that. On Saturday it will be tough against Rio Ferdinand, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney, a great player who brings team-mates into the game. And I love playing against John Terry. [He scored against Chelsea last season when the England captain played.] We try to bully each other but no complaints. They and others at the top clubs are very good, so I need to have luck to show what I can do. At the moment everything is good at Middlesbrough. But in football you never say never.'

Yakubu's progress this season has continued the climb that began as a 16-year-old for Okomo, a Nigerian amateur club. Of his 16 goals this season, 12 have been in the Premiership - behind only Ronaldo and Didier Drogba - and his partnership with Mark Viduka, who has 12 in all competitions, is one of the reasons why Middlesbrough have lost only once, to the champions Chelsea, in 2007.

At 24, he is still improving. 'Every day my awareness and positioning become smoother,' says Yakubu, who recognises the influence of managers he has worked under. 'Harry told me, "Just play." And Gareth Southgate gives you the licence to feel free.' Asked about McClaren's abilities, he offers a defence of Southgate's predecessor. 'If he's not good enough for England, then they wouldn't give him the job. Sometimes he might have been angry if we didn't play well but that's football. When I don't play well I can be angry.'

So, too, Pini Zahavi, his agent who will earn £3.5m if Yakubu plays out his five-year contract at Middlesbrough. Yakubu calls him a second father. 'I've known him since I was 17. When I play bad he always calls and says, "Listen, Jacob [Yakubu translates as Jacob], today you were awful." Sometimes I get annoyed. But when I play well he also says, "Keep working hard".' One area he might work on is his heading: of his 53 Premiership goals, only six have come from Yakubu's head. If he is to be the complete marksman, this is an area for improvement.

Yakubu, born in November 1982, began playing football as a young boy on the streets in New Benin, a neighbourhood close to the centre of Benin, a bustling city of more than a million. His grammar school was a five-minute walk from the three-room apartment he shared with his mother and father - a builder - and five brothers and a sister. He watched the European leagues on television. 'Ronaldo was my hero, I admired the way he played. I wanted to do the same.'

How was life growing up? 'A bit stretched, but we enjoyed it. Most of the big football players come from these areas. It helps motivate, you want to achieve something because you don't want to go back to where you used to live. And it wasn't dangerous because we had people looking out for us.'

Yet, shortly after his move to Portsmouth became permanent in April 2003, the edgy side of his family's neighbourhood in Nigeria came calling. On the evening of the Porto-Celtic Uefa Cup final in May, nine gunmen broke into the family home. 'They beat up my parents and a brother, and said if they didn't get some money that they would kill them. That's what it can be like in Nigeria. I have a house in Lagos, where it's safer, and I wanted to move them, but they wanted to stay. But now, they are doing great,' he says. When he visits, though, it is always with a police escort.

Spotted at 16 by the former Nigeria player Godwin Izilein, Yakubu impressed for Okomo, helping them to promotion and earning a move to Julius Berger, one of the biggest clubs in Nigeria. Here he met Shauaibu Amodu, the former Nigeria head coach, who arranged a move to Maccabi in Israel. 'He took me to Haifa for a trial. I wasn't nervous, I just thought I would do what I can and if they like me, OK.'

Signed for £350,000 when he was 17, a homesick Yakubu would call Nigeria six times a day. Some of those conversations were practical. 'I would ask my mother what I should put in the pot with the rice for the tomato sauce when I was hungry.' A loan year at Hapoel Kfar Saba followed. He scored six in 23 appearances, including a goal against Maccabi in 2000 that denied his club a first Israeli championship for five years. The next season, under Avram Grant, now director of football at Portsmouth, he became a regular. 'Grant is a great manager,' says Yakubu of the coach wanted earlier this year by Roman Abramovich to help the misfiring Andriy Shevchenko. 'After training he would push me. Sometimes I would get angry but in the end I enjoyed it.'

Yakubu would have gone to Derby had he been granted a work permit in the summer of 2002. By the following January, the problem had been solved and he joined Portsmouth, eventually costing £2m in a deal that allowed Haifa half of any future transfer fee. At Maccabi, Yakubu had scored 24 in 50 league appearances, seven in 11 Champions League games - including a goal against Manchester United and a hat-trick against Olympiakos, the performance that first alerted Europe's top clubs - and helped the team secure consecutive domestic championships.

He had also made his international debut, aged 17, against Ethiopia, before he was controversially left out of the Nigeria 2002 World Cup squad - the official reason was his recovery from an eye operation - having played in that season's African Nations Cup. His real problems with the national set-up, though, began at the Nations Cup two years later in Tunisia and rumbled on until last year.

Yakubu was sent home from Tunisia 04 with Celestine Babayaro and Victor Agali for 'just drinking coffee in the bar one night. Four months later it was claimed we were with girls, which was untrue. I told them I would never play again.' The Nigerian FA apologised and Yakubu was coaxed back for a World Cup qualifier in September 2005, only to be kept on the bench by the new coach, Austin Eguavoen.

Again he was unhappy. 'I spoke to Eguavoen about not playing and after I left he told the players that if anything goes wrong they should hold me responsible. That's why I refused to go to last season's Nations Cup despite pressure from my parents. And I don't regret that.'

Last August, peace was again restored and now, he says: 'Everything is fine. Although I don't know if tomorrow it will be, '

He is right to be circumspect. Eguavoen may only be assistant coach now, but his replacement, Berti Vogts, refused to travel to Nigeria last week because of an unpaid salary instalment.

Yakubu's own future beyond football is unclear, although he is sure coaching is not for him. 'When I finish I finish for good,' he says. Does he still cook his mother's recipes? He smiles. 'No, I eat Indian or Chinese takeaways. Or frozen food. I love microwaves.'

He also loves scoring goals. Manchester United, beware

idiot any normal coach should pai apam and adeleye against argentina, and if they do messi would be fairly handled like they did in olympics

idiot you think say the man care, how can any normal person dump a 1.5million 5 months contract just because of interferance. the man don't care he jus wan chop mone bfor he lvs

honny anichebe should be axed, or whos place do you think he should take,
ike uche
obasi
obinna
osaze
martins
peter utaka
eneramo are all far better strikers than anichebe, anichebe a player that kept on missing chances after chances in olympics, honey 101 just admit that you are an idiot.

what kind of nonsence is this, how can a player that played for sharks in 2002, a player that is 27years old parade as a u-20 and everybody knows yet they keep quiet. later nigerians would blame curruption on their leaders alone. now i know we the people are corrupt as the politicians

sleek reek what am trying to say is that people are using this experience excuse too much. if not why would a player like kanu,yakubu sstill be in this team. people say kanu is lucky, but what has his luck done for us in the last 10 years nothing

ahh sleek reek you no like nigeria oh. why would you want lagerbeer to drop all his creative midfilders and leave useless players like keita,ayila ajilore in

lets be real we need experience for world cup, so am picking players i don't care if they are good, but so long as they are experienced

peter rufai

odiah taribo west yobo babayaro


obi mikel

etim esin jj okocha

finidi

yakubu kanu

this team is experienced

the guy is a real idiot. how can he leaves our 2 top scorers ike uche and obinna and puts in 2 extremely lazy players yakubu and kanu. ik uche must go to world cup, we would likely play france in 2nd round and ike uche would teach them lesson again

it is not a sign of jealousy, just annoying i don't like when people that don't know anything about football just come here and start talking rubbish

also i think you are hausa mallam thats why you want keita, because keita is a useless player . he dosen't have any ball sence,technical ability,passing ability what so ever. keita cannot pass the ball 10 yards so please never suggest keita in eagles because he is useless. also go and watch ekpo very well that guy is tremendously skillful he is just unlucky that he is playing in mls he is definetly better than these useless defensive midfilders like ayila keita

also he is not just a bit part player like kanu, kanu goes to a big club sit on the bench for 90minutes then when his club win kanu names comes out, while etoo is very important in all the wins he has done

he has been playing since 2months and he have scored only i goal, while for the whole season he has played about 24 games and have scored only 4 goals. hollandis you are a big idot if you think john utaka deserves a world cup place.

mikel would be playing in his position number 4 but i don't think the future of our number 4 is with mikel, i think nwankwo or azeez will have it for a long time but for the main time mikel should play as a dm

how is he inform because he score i goal, prior to that he did not score any in 11 games and also before the 11games he did not score any in 17games

kanu awards

FIFA U-17 World Cup (1993)
Olympic Games (1996)



UEFA Champions League (1995)
Intercontinental Cup (1995)
UEFA Super Cup (1995)
UEFA Cup (1998)



Nigerian League (1993)
Dutch Eredivisie (1994, 1995, 1996)
Dutch Super Cup (1994, 1995)
English FA Cup (2002, 2003, 2008)
English FA Premier League (2002, 2004)



African Footballer of the Year (1996, 1999)

FIFA World Footballer of the Year (Sixth Place)



20 awards


etoo awards

SAMUEL ETO'O



Africa Cup of Nations (2000, 2002)
Olympic Games (2000)



Intercontinental Cup (1998)
UEFA Champions League (2006, 2009)

UEFA Champions League Best Forward (2006)



Spanish Copa del Rey (2003, 2009)
Spanish La Liga (2005, 2006, 2009)
Spanish Super Cup (2005, 2006)



African Young Footballer of the Year (2001)
African Footballer of the Year (2003, 2004, 2005)
Africa Cup of Nations Top Scorer (2006, 2008)
Spanish La Liga Top Scorer (2006)

Africa Cup of Nations all time top scorer

RCD Mallorca all time top scorer

Cameroon all-time top scorer

FIFA World Footballer of the Year - 2006 (3rd Place)



25 awards

mama gee you are a born fool. kanu is not the most decorated etoo is. wikipedia is living in the past. kanu should have retired since 2007 the guy is just living off atlanta 1996 glory because other than that he has done nothing he is not even a nigeria senior team legend, since 1994 when he made his debut against sweden to 2010 kanu have scored only 13goals and 10 assists how poor can a striker be. kanu will not play any game again this season and he has scored only few goals but if lars take him he is just stupid.

i would like too see rabiu ibrahim and emmanuel ekpo, but since hey did not call them up we should just use 2 midfilders haruna lukman 10 and mikel 4. all these 3 defensive midfilders in a game is rubbish

fool how many screamer have the useless etuhu or ayila scored for nigeria, where was the useless etuhu and ayila in nations cup, allowing a 35 year old egyptian to boss them

good list but what has odibe done to deserve a world cup apperance over adeleye. so after adeleye have been with us, played well since 2005 we should drop him for an average player that has played only 5 games for his small club.

all these english-nigerians are very weird, you have players like abedi pele,george weah,ryan giggs, george best regretting that they did not go to a world cup, while a stupid average player like onuoha have mouth to say no, odiah is better than onuoha. in the future most likely when england have perfectly shun him, he should not come back and even he if comes back we should reject.