Former Super Eagles captain Vincent Enyeama is eyeing a return to football four months after he departed French club Lille on mutual consent in August 2018, reports Completesports.com.
Enyeama told French tabloid La Voix du Nord he has been receiving offers from Turkey and Israel but will prefer to stay in France where his family are well settled in.
“No, not right now. I want to continue a little bit, but it’s complicated,” the 36-year-old replied when asked about his future.
“I train every day here in my house. I keep fit. I had some tracks in France, Israel or Turkey. But at my age (36), my mindset is that I do not want to leave my family again.
“My loved ones are here, in Lille. We are perfectly integrated. We have been living in the North since 2011.
“I have nothing in France, anyway. I still leave until June to see if a good project arrives. I do not just want to replay, I want to have fun. And that my family is good.
The 2013 AFCON winner also recounted his bitter exit at Lille when Argentine coach Marcelo Bielsa arrived at the club in 2017.
“I did not imagine that. I gave so much to Lille, I was one of the important players at the club at that time,” Enyeama recalled.
“I had never seen that in football. It was Franck Beria who called me during my vacation in Nigeria. He said to me, “Vincent, I have bad news. You’re not going to train with team A.
“I asked him why. He said: ‘I do not know He just told me it was the decision of the leaders’.
“I had this injury (in April 2017) and I could not come back for three or four months. This situation was difficult. Before I hurt myself in Rennes, I played many games with pain in the knee. Everyone knew it.
“I was given injections to remove fluid, I was given cortisone. It made me angry. The question was how long the knee would hold.
“They set up a new project which must be respected. I’d be 37 soon and I can understand. But the way I was pushed aside and humanly, it was not good. Neither for me nor for other guys who gave everything for the team, like Marko Basa or Rio Mavuba, for example.
“We were all very disappointed. Marko was one of the best defenders in Ligue 1. Rio gave it all for this club. And bam, overnight, they were apart.
“They have not even been celebrated by the fans. We did not even pay homage to them. I could not even say goodbye to the public, neither did I.
“Everything was fine until he (Bielsa) came. Imagine, I was undergoing treatment when he arrived at the club. The first time we met I was in a hospital bed. He walked in and did not even care to greet me or ask if I was okay.
“His assistants came later to check on me. The next day nobody spoke to me and that was how it all began to spoil for me at Lille. Perhaps Bielsa didn’t like me but he never said it, however his attitude towards me was terrible,” Enyeama lamented.
On his plans after retirement, the former Maccabi Tel Aviv and Enyimba goalkeeper said: “Honestly, I live from day to day and I do not think about it.
“After my career, I will love to pass on my knowledge, help the young guardians as I did last year, with the LOSC reserve, why not?”
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2 Comments
You will be remembered as one of the best to come out of Africa. Your fans (including this writer) still adore you.
Wow…. Vincent ‘clean-sheets’ Enyeama…!!! Feels so good to see/hear you once more. Chai…na wah o…! You remain the greatest goalkeeper of all time from Africa…! Mention them….Thomas Nkomo, Jacques Sango’o, Alain Goumenne, Hossam El-Badary, Badou Zaki….name them. None comes close to you….! Back-to-Back CAF Champions league winner, 1 gold, 2 bronze medals at Afcon, 3 times AFCON Goalkeeper of the tournament, 5 times CAF XI of the year, All-time African goalkeeper with the most goals and clean sheets in Europe.
In all honesty, one with so much accolades should have deserved a better twighlight to his career….but its quite unfortunate.
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Sometimes in life…especially in one’s career, there are times when you just stoop so you can conquer. For me, your much publicized bust up with the then national team coach and subsequent unceremonious exit from the national team was the genesis of this decline.
Your Oga na still your Oga o….e nor get medicine..! Even if the company is named after you, so far you have a superintendent, or someone who has the title of ‘boss’……you must stomach whatever he throws at you. 20 kings…20 eras. You may have had superior who treated you like a special being, like a god, but there’ll also come some who will not give a hoot about you. That’s life.
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It was a similar scenerio that made you take that hurried decision to walk out on the national team in such an abrupt manner, even after many pleas from all and sundry for a return, thereby ruining many years of meritorious service. Now your club coach did something i consider even worse….why didnt you also walk out on the club…? you even had to settle for playing with reserves and youth players….of course because you had to guard your source of daily bread jealously….as they say back at home…half bread is better than kpoff-kpoff.
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At times like that, wen players are having rough patches at their clubs, it the national team that often comes to the rescue. Between 1991 and 1993 or so…there was a time nobody knew the whereabouts of Peter Rufai, not even Westerhoff. Infact rumours had it then that he had quit football. Some people even claimed they saw him loitering around the streets of belgium or holland. Alloy Agu and Wilfred Agbonavbare were holding sway in the national team then. Until the parties involved where pacified and Rufai made his way back to the SE then, in time to reclaim his shirt for the 94 AFCON and World cup. He subsequently did enough at both tournaments to earn a move away from the club where he was having issues. Kanu Nnwankwo also didnt have things rossy in his last days at Arsenal…at a point in time he was training with the U18s. i even remember him captaining a group of teenagers in a carling cup macth as it was common with Arsene Wenger then to field toddlers in ‘lesser cup’ matches. But his constant feature in the national team then kept him in the limelight, even though he was always coming on from the bench as an impact substitute. But it was still enough to show what he was made of and attract interest from West-brom and later Portsmouth.
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What am I saying in essence….Vincent should have ‘stooped’ to mend fences with then national team coach, at least for the sake of his international career which in anyway would have probably come to an end after the 2018 WC, albeit befittingly. That which he couldn’t take from the national team coach, he took even more from his club coach and couldn’t even do anything about it. Unfortunately, forfeiting a benefiting end to a glittering international career. That saddens me the most.
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At 36, and having not played competitively for close to 2 years, not many top division clubs in europe will want to touch you…even with a long stick. And family too is very very important. Its a good idea to remain in france….a lig 2 team wouldn’t be bad. We would just be happy enough to hear that you are back in the game. Who knows, you might just wake up one day and receive a love letter from the SE coach (whoever it may be then). It has happened many times in history, several legends have had to be re-called from retirement to answer the clarion call of their nations…..Lottar matteus (1990 &1994) Roger Milla (1990 & 1994),Oliver Bierhoff (2002), Peter Rufai (1998), Hossam el-Hadary (2018) etc.
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Nevertheless, Vincent ‘clean-sheets’ Enyeama’s legends remain in our hearts…
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“he could save virtually anything…..even a relationship that’s on the brink of collapse….rumours had it that his parents’ bed had a clean sheet laid on it the night he was convieved…he was born clutching a magnet in both plams”…That’s the gist i’m gonna give my grand-children and great grand-children (God keeping me alive till then) when i get to tell them stories about a certain legendary african goalkeeper.
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Once again Vincent, it feels really wonderfully great to here from you once again…!