Former Nigerian U-23 star is La Liga Smartbank’s most valuable player at ₦8.5b

The Spanish second division has over five hundred players plying their trade in the league, but an Olympic bronze medalist is the most valuable of them all 

According to the latest Transfermarkt update, Almeria’s Umar Sadiq’s estimated market value is now pegged at 18 million euros, experiencing an increase of 3 million euros from the last review on June 24.

Signed from Serbian giants Partizan Belgrade in 2020 for only €5 million, Sadiq is the most valuable player in La Liga Smartbank.

Of the 539 players in the 22 clubs slugging it out in the Spanish league’s second division, no other player is worth half as much as Sadiq.

Valued at six million euros each, the trio of Real Valladolid’s Shon Weissman, HD Huesca’s Adolfo Gaich, and Sporting Gijon’s Uros Djurdjevic arrive at a distant second position behind the Nigerian forward.

Sadiq is also the seventh most valuable player from Nigeria, coming behind Napoli’s Victor Osimhen, Leicester City’s Wilfred Ndidi, Alex Iwobi, Paul Onuachu, Kelechi Iheanacho, and Samuel Chukwueze.

The 24-year-old was part of the Nigerian U-23 team that won bronze at the football event of the Rio 2016 Olympics, but he is yet to make his debut for the national team. 

However, despite not yet making his debut for the Super Eagles, the forward is rated higher than several Nigerian internationals, including Union Berlin’s Taiwo Awoniyi, Lorient’s Terem Moffi, and Olympiakos’s Henry Onyekuru.

Globally, Sadiq is the 462nd most valuable footballer, but he is ranked 66th among all centre-forwards and 64th among players born in and after 1997.

The former AS Roma striker has six goals and three assists in ten league matches this season, but he fired blank as Almeria lost 1-0 at Eibar on Friday evening.