“I wasn’t passionate about the game” – Nigerian football legend

Mathematical is one of a few football stars Nigeria has produced; a legend of the screens of pastime and a hero to many

Segun Odegbami is one of the finest players to have ever won the Nigerian jersey and despite spending only a few years in the Nigerian national team, he’s the second top scorer in the national team’s history.

The Nigerian football legend has turned 70 and is one of the best ever seen in the country.

Odegbami in an interview with foremost Nigerian sports journalist Calvin Emeka Onwuka revealed that he never played football for the passion he had for it.

The Shooting Stars of Ibadan legend said his passion for the game wasn’t anything near what his teammate possessed.

“I was just enjoying myself and just playing it. I was not passionate like the others. I was not passionate about football. I was not like Muda (Lawal), Thompson Usiyen, Rashidi (Yekini). These were guys who ate and slept and dreamt football. I wasn’t like that.”

Odegbami also talked about his fame and how fans adored him.

”For how big a player I thought I was… I listened to Rashidi Yekini in an interview and he said he played in Setubal during one game and he went home naked. And I could immediately just understand because the fans stripped him naked. They were taking every part of his outfit. One took his shoe, his socks and everything and he went home naked.

“I was stripped naked like that one morning at the National Stadium at an FA Cup final. I had only my shorts to take home. They carried me from the stadium to the car and removed everything from my body. Some people prevented them from removing my shorts. And they put me in this car and they pushed that car from the national stadium through Surulere and caused traffic everywhere,” Odegbami narrated.