Extraordinary Everyday…

BY IKENWA NNABUOGOR

Not a soap opera from the famous Indian terrestrial TV channel ZeeWorld to cue in, but best defines the exceptional scoring pedigree of Super Eagles’ free scoring machine, Victor Osihmen who breathes goal from all parts of his body.

Osihmen came away with the hard earned equalizer for his country which he squeezed out from a rock to poop Benin’s well planned party nationwide in the 2025 AFCON qualifier in Abidjan Thursday night.

The Galatasaray striker had made sure Eagles shared spoils in the rainy evening with just a few minutes left on the clock to cut back on the full points their tiny neighbours had almost escaped to Porto Novo with.

Eagles had stormed the Abidjan neutral venue proud candidates to the 2025 AFCON after Libya had helped beat Rwanda 1-0 earlier in the day to make a formality of whatever colour the Abidjan tie would look like.

Benin had impressively got their groove back to paint their game plans in rainbow colours by putting their noses in front and defending the shock lead as if their lives depended on it to make safe the second ticket in the group to Morocco until Osihmen reminded them of who they really were.

The stout defence had “cordoned off” Osihmen and almost made a perfect job of it before the extraordinary marksman leveled things up in the 82nd minute to peg back the desperate tiny neighbours to try to squeeze out the last ticket on the final fixture on Tuesday with an away trip to Libya.

Osihmen was back to finish off what had started in Uyo in the reverse fixture when he came off the bench to blast the Eagles’ second goal in the sweet 3-0 victory.

Abidjan wasn’t going to be a bad day in the office for the free scoring super star as he netted again to up his Eagles’ tally to 23 to equal Segun Odegbami’s 43 year record.

“Mathematical” Segun had maintained his second best place behind record scorer Rashidi Yekini on 38 goals in the Eagles’ top scorer’s chart until Osihmen spectacularly headed home to be at par with the legendary former IICC super winger.

Osihmen’s headache is now the age-long Yekini’s record and wrapping his head around it would have him extraordinarily send the keepers to retrieve the ball from the back of the net 15 times to equal the celebrated goals king’s record.

The former Lille star is made of extraordinary gold, needs no further polishing but fully licensed as keepers’ public enemy numero uno to do all goal banging things.

He’s back again on Tuesday, this time, the East Africans from Rwanda hosting the Tutsis and Hutus, are in town to feel the fiery force of the ruthless striker. He will be hard to be stopped in Uyo and making hay could well be business as usual.

Napoli had forced him to start his extra engines which he had no plans to and Turkish giants Galatasaray are the winners of his rejuvenated turbo-charged engines and it appears he’s just started.

His brilliant harvest of goals in the Turkish commercial hub is a pointer he just couldn’t be silenced from doing his goal scoring business.

The stormier the weather for the proven striker the more prolific he gets in front of goal. He’s spoiling for more and he’s not stopping any time soon.

The coming days will remain greener for the talisman whose goals for club and country are too beautiful to behold.

The hunger is almost unthinkable, not looking like he’s going to get fill anytime soon, opposing defenders and goalkeepers are in serious trouble ahead.

What about commitment to the cause? Sure, it’s rare to find and Osihmen got it well assured and it will only take a horrible day in the office to leave without a feather to ruffle.

But has he had a bad day lately? Not that it’s seen in recent times and he’s not planning for one mow that he’s got a national record to smash and club and international honours to bag. He certainly can’t afford a bad day in the office.

Remember, he’s extraordinary everyday….?

You bet?