Francis Uzoho

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Francis Uzoho
Francis Uzoho.jpg
Francis Uzoho as national player (2017)
Personnel
Surname Francis Odinaka Uzoho
birthday October 28, 1998
place of birth Nwangele , Imo ,  Nigeria
size 196 cm
position goalkeeper
Juniors
Years station
2013-2016 Aspire Academy
2017 Deportivo La Coruña
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
2017– Deportivo Fabril 26 (0)
2017– Deportivo La Coruña 2 (0)
2019– Omonia Nicosia
National team
Years selection Games (goals) 2
~ 2013 ~ Nigeria U17
2017– Nigeria at least 9 (0)
1 Only league games are given.
As of July 9, 2018

2 As of July 9, 2018

Francis Odinaka Uzoho (born October 28, 1998 in Nwangele , Imo ) is a Nigerian football player on the position of goalkeeper . Since 2017 he has been under contract with the relegated Primera División Deportivo La Coruña with games in the Segunda División . Furthermore, he also appears for his B-team, which appears under the name Deportivo Fabril, and made his debut in the Nigerian senior team in 2017 .

Club career

Francis Uzoho was born on October 28, 1998 in the Local Government Area Nwangele just north of Owerri , the capital of the Nigerian state of Imo. He began his career as a football player in the position of a striker , but at the age of twelve, as he was considered too slow, had to change his position and then became a goalkeeper. As a street soccer player, he started playing soccer with his friends at a very early age, but only took the sport seriously from the age of 13 or 14. After playing at an academy in Nigeria for around four years, in 2013, when he was 14, he moved to the Aspire Academy in Qatar , where he received intensive training as a goalkeeper. He was active here until 2016, before taking part in various training camps in Spain via the Aspire Academy , including a tournament in Barcelona . He noticed the scouts from Deportivo La Coruña , who then guided him to the Spanish first division club . Initially active in the club's own offspring, he quickly made the leap into the B-team from Deportivo La Coruña , which was named Deportivo Fabril .

In the B-team, which had just been promoted to the third-class Spanish Segunda División B , he was used by coach Cristóbal Parralo early in the 2017/18 season and quickly developed into the team's regular goalkeeper. By the end of the season he had been used in 25 of 38 possible league games and ranked with the team in Group 1 in second place behind Rayo Majadahonda . As a result, the team qualified for the season-closing play-offs, in which Deportivo Fabril was eliminated in the first round against Extremadura due to the away goals rule . Uzoho was used in the first leg and was exempted for the second leg because he was with the Nigerian national team.

After he was only able to sign a contract with the professional team in January 2017 due to the age regulation, he immediately started training with the professionals. On October 15, 2017, the Nigerian made his debut under coach Pepe Mel in a 0-0 draw away against SD Eibar for the professional team. At 18 years and 352 days, he was the youngest foreign goalkeeper to ever make his debut in the Primera División and the second youngest player in the Primera División 2017/18 behind Achraf Hakimi from Real Madrid . In the ninth round that followed, Uzoho played a second time in the top Spanish football league in a 2-1 home defeat against FC Girona . After that, the young Nigerian was not included in any other competitive game of the professionals and was no longer even on the substitute bench, but spent the rest of the season in the B-team and in the national team. With the Spaniards, who were relegated to the Segunda División as 18th in the Primera División at the end of the 2017/18 season, Uzoho has a contract that runs until summer 2021.

National team career

Uzoho gained his first experience in a national team of the Nigerian Football Association in 2013 when, at the age of just 14 , he acted as the second or third goalkeeper for the Nigerians at the U-17 World Cup in 2013 , but was not used.

In October 2017, Uzoho received his first call-up for the senior national team in his home country, trained by Gernot Rohr . While he was not yet taken into account in the encounter against Algeria , Rohr used him on November 14, 2017 in a 4-2 win over vice world champions Argentina from the second half of the game for Daniel Akpeyi . After appearances in two more friendly international matches against Poland and Serbia at the end of March 2018, Uzoho and his home country took part in the preparations for the 2018 World Cup. Here Rohr used him in the games against the DR Congo , England and the Czech Republic for the full duration of the game. After he was appointed to the 23-man Nigerian squad for the 2018 World Cup in Russia , he was already rated as a Nigerian goalkeeper at the World Cup. At the tournament itself, the Nigerians were eliminated early after three games in Group D in third place; Uzoho was in goal for the Nigerian national team for the full duration of all three games and had to concede four goals.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Francis Uzoho: “A veces extraño jugar en punta” (Spanish), accessed on July 9, 2018
  2. ↑ El Dépor ficha al nigeriano Francis Uzoho (Spanish), accessed on July 9, 2018
  3. ↑ Una promesa nigeriana se entrena con el primer equipo del Deportivo (Spanish), accessed on July 9, 2018
  4. ↑ Eibar-Dépor will be remembered for Francis' debut (Spanish), accessed on July 9, 2018
  5. ↑ a b Nigerian Uzoho revels in historic La Liga debut , accessed on July 9, 2018
  6. ↑ El portero del Deportivo Francis Uzoho entra en la historia de Laliga (Spanish), accessed on July 9, 2018
  7. ↑ Nigerian-born teenage goalkeeper, Francis Uzoho makes La Liga debut , accessed July 9, 2018
  8. ↑ Deportivo goalkeeper Uzoho delight at Nigeria call-up (English), accessed on July 9, 2018
  9. ↑ Argentina 2-4 Nigeria: Arsenal forward Alex Iwobi scores twice as Super Eagles win friendly in Russia , accessed on July 9, 2018
  10. ↑ World Cup 2018: Arsenal's Iwobi in Nigeria's 23-man squad , accessed on July 9, 2018
  11. ↑ World Cup 2018: Nigeria's Uzoho still on a 'learning curve' , accessed on July 9, 2018
  12. ↑ Francis Uzoho: wannabe striker aims to become Nigeria's goalkeeping giant , accessed on July 9, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Uzoho, Francis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Uzoho, Francis Odinaka (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Nigerian soccer goalkeeper
DATE OF BIRTH October 28, 1998
PLACE OF BIRTH Nwangele , Imo , Nigeria