Rangers of Scotland left full back Calvin Bassey Ughelumba arrived the camp of the senior national team of Nigeria yesterday full of excitement at finally achieving one of the dreams of his career.
The defender was handed a first time call up by coach of the Nigerian team Gernot Rohr for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers back to back game against Central Africa Republic (CAR) on the 7th and 10th of October respectively.
Upon arrival in camp yesterday Bassey was all smiles, taking pictures and making videos of himself. In one of the videos he couldn’t hold back his emotions as he screamed “I’m so happy to be back home”.
Born in Italy to Nigerian parents , the former Leicester City U23 defender is eligible to also represent England, but playing for Nigeria has been his dream for a long while and two years ago he went as far as introducting himself to the U20 coach of Nigeria Paul Aigbogun.
” He came to me in 2019 requesting to be given a chance to play for us at the U20 World Cup in Poland but I was very honest with him as my captain back then Ikouwem Utin was playing in same position”, the coach told Owngoalnigeria.com.
Bassey has since moved on to establishing himself as a first team squad member of Scottish champions Rangers and he played some part in their run to the league title last season. This time around he need not to approach the coach as he was duly invited base on the strength of his performance.
