Stop it! Enyeama is no overnight goalkeeping hero

Vincent Enyeama continued to make waves as an outstanding goalie after helping his French Ligue1 side, Lille to a huge win against top side Olympique Marseille Tuesday night.

It was another brilliant performance from the Nigeria captain who stretched his clean sheet to 11 successive games and 1035minutes without conceding a single goal, and 13 shut-outs from 16 matches this season.

Enyeama made four incredible saves, including a double one, as a rampaging Marseille bombarded his defence line, with his fiery look offering an impression of a man who was not ready to surrender his terrific streak. The cameras were on him, and suddenly there was more interest in a Ligue1 game than ever.

The countdown to history has begun, as the Super Eagles star closes in on Gaetan Huard’s 1,176minutes of clean sheet set in 1993, with Lille set to face Bordeaux (away) and Bastia (home) as the next games where the milestone could be re-written. 142minutes left to negotiate.

 Enyeama  with teammates after his heroics  Marseille.          PHOTO: LOSC 

Unsurprisingly, we have been hearing some interesting arguments on the impregnability of the Lille defence in a desperate attempt to downplay the contribution of the Nigerian. Without taking anything away from the performance of his club’s backline,  Enyeama’s stats of having kept out the last 33 shots he had faced (opta) doesn’t suggest he has merely benefited from being shielded by a Berlin Wall.

Then we’ve got the naysayers of “he’s just having a great season”. How dare you plant Enyeama into that ‘one-season wonder’ football cliché? Well you may not have heard of him, but sorry, you are probably a neophyte in international football affairs, not only at African level, but also the biggest stage.

Born 29, August, 1982, Enyeama had led Nigerian top division side Enyimba of Aba to national title in 2001 and repeated the feat in 2002, the same year he made his debut for his country in a preparatory match against Kenya barely a month to the start of the 2002 World Cup.

He got the nod from the then Nigeria coach and FIFA instructor, Adegboye Onigbinde who hurriedly assembled a fresh team after taking over from Amodu Shuaibu, the man who successfully oversaw the qualification campaign.

After his team’s losses to Argentina and Sweden in their opening two games, Onigbinde gave an acid test to the young Enyeama who was the understudy to national number one, Ike Shorunmu. He showed a nervy start but then pulled the save of the game diverting Paul Scholes’ customary pile-driver onto the upright. It was a watershed to greatness, but many never took notice.

A year later, the Nigeria captain led Enyimba to a domestic and continental double, becoming the first club in the country to win the CAF Champions League title, an African trophy he helped retained in 2004. He then joined local rivals, Heartland after which he left for Isreali side, Bnei Yehuda in 2005. It was somewhat an inauspicious move because Enyeama’s profile had risen tremendously on the continent.

Yet the goalkeeper remained consistent with his form and made another incredible mark at the 2006 African Cup of Nations competition where he helped the Super Eagles to a bronze medal feat, his second after achieving the same honour in his debut participation in 2004, . He saved FOUR penalties; one in the 15th minute to protect Nigeria’s early lead and three in the penalty shoot-out, including the deciding kick in the quarter finals of the Egypt 2006 edition.

Enyeama then led little known Bnei Yehuda to UEFA Cup qualification that year and consequently joined a more respectable Israeli outfit Hapoel Tel-Aviv, for whom he played in UEFA Champions League qualifiers. The goalkeeper also had a stint with Maccabi Tel Aviv and was notable as a penalty shooting specialist, apart from his shot-stopping exploits and won league and cup titles in the last two Israeli clubs.

The goalkeeper lost his national team place briefly to Austin Ejide’s whose towering frame and form was preferred by the then coach, Berti Vogts as he led Nigeria to the 2008 Nations Cup where the team failed to progress beyond the quarter finals. But he reclaimed his top spot soon after, helping the side to another bronze in the 2010 tournament in Angola.

Enyeama went on to rubbish possible suggestions that he was playing in a small league with successive official man-of-the-match awards in Nigeria’s opening two games against Argentina and Greece at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. He denied the best tormentor there probably ever was, Lionel Messi, several times with outstanding saves to the frustration of their coach, Diego Maradona.

He was linked to a move to Premier League sides Bolton and Arsenal at different times, yet none materialised. Then after moving to Lille in 2011, he never had the opportunity until this season when he made his breakthrough.

By the way, is playing in a lowly rated team a yardstick to measure talent? Not a rule of thumb in football.  Yaya Toure was considered not good enough after his trial at Arsenal and had to move to Ukraine instead, and then Olympiacos, Monaco before his big move to Barcelona in summer 2007. In contrast brother Kolo was however signed by Wenger from Ivory Coast and he became a huge hit

Again, despite having won the 1995 Champions League trophy with home team Ajax and playing for Juventus, Edwin van Der Saar still had to join Fulham, an average team, before securing a great move to Manchester United and became a bigger goalkeeping icon.In contrast,  Jussi Jaaskelainen would not be reckoned with as a great goalie in Europe just because he spent his best years playing for Bolton.

George Weah never had a chance to win anything with his national team, Liberia, but he got to the pinnacle and became the world best in 1995 via an incredible club career involving spells at Monaco, PSG and AC Milan.

So before you trivialise Enyeama’s goalkeeping career, think again.