When Super Eagles first choice goalkeeper Maduka Okoye was first called up to the Nigerian team two years ago, his invitation generated a whole lot of controversy back then.
The talks were all about the rationale in inviting a goalkeeper who was playing amateur football for the B team of German side Fortuna Düsseldorf who were then close to gaining promotion to the Bundesliga.
They did made it to the Bundesliga but Okoye was still with the B team save for couple of games of the first team where he made the bench. That further heaped pressure on coach of the Nigerian team Gernot Rohr but he was defiant.
Fast forward to now and Okoye has risen to the position of first choice at Sparta Rotterdam and the Nigeria national team and in the Netherlands he is seen as one of the best goalkeepers in the top division.
It took the recommendation of legendary German goalkeeper Lutz Pfannenstiel For Rohr to keep the faith in the then 20 year old Okoye who was also at the time having an inglorious record of conceding tons of goals in the German Regionalaliga.
Credit must however go to a Nigerian Mohammed Adesoji Elias who was the first to contact Okoye and handed his contact to NFF President Amaju Pinnick who in turn passed the name to Rohr.
Rohr contacted Lutz who gave him a comprehensively breakdown of the talent of Okoye who he signed while he was Sporting Director of Fortuna Düsseldorf, but who exactly is Lutz Pfannenstiel and why is he so respected in Germany and beyond.
Lutz Pfannenstiel’s football career is like no other. He was locked up in a Singapore prison, he was declared dead on the pitch, he was signed by 25 clubs in 13 countries and he is still the only professional to have played in all six of Fifa’s confederations.
Along the way the German keeper, now 38, went from the youth team at Bayern Munich to Brazil, New Zealand, Malaysia, Finland, South Africa, Canada, Albania, Namibia, Armenia and Malta, via Nottingham Forest and the “crazy gang” at Wimbledon.
I had a normal career at the start and I played for the German junior national team but I was always a little impatient,” Pfannenstiel told the BBC’s World Football programme.
“So when it didn’t work my way I decided to go overseas and I left aged 19 to go to Malaysia, which is kind of a strange thing to do when you have a good offer from Bayern and you end up playing for the Penang football association in South East Asia.
“I didn’t really plan to play for that many clubs, circumstances went like that. The coach got fired, the club went bankrupt, a thousand things happened in my career which were not so nice.”
The worst moment came during a spell in Singapore when he was accused of match fixing and spent 101 days in jail.
“I don’t think there are very many tougher prisons in the world. I was living it large in Singapore, I was modelling for Armani, I had my own TV show and football was good but then suddenly I woke up in a tiny concrete cell and everything was in shambles for me. So the shock was the biggest.
“The area where I played – South East Asia – is basically the capital of match fixing. In my case it was strange because I was actually accused of playing too well. Two games we won and one game was a draw where I was man of the match. If a judge in court tells you you’ve played better than you normally do it’s not really logical.
“In the end I got out of it, the evidence was basically cleared as no money changed hands.
“I came out of that after 101 days and became a better person. It was the toughest time in my life but also the time when I learnt the most.”
Not long after fighting to clear his name, Pfannenstiel was battling for his life after his heart stopped beating during a match in England.
“I was on loan from a club in New Zealand to Bradford Park Avenue, it was a normal Boxing Day and I had a collision after 30 minutes.
“Basically my lungs collapsed, I had no pulse anymore, then I was declared three-times dead on the football field.
“But I woke up in hospital three hours later.”
And his first spell in English football was equally eventful. Back in 1994 he was signed by Wimbledon and experienced the full force of Vinnie Jones and the “crazy gang”.
“Two or three days after I arrived we went for a run in a park and suddenly someone gave some command, they grabbed me and got me undressed so I was completely naked in November in the freezing cold,” he said. “They took all my clothes and my shoes and just left.
“I was lying in a ditch and wasn’t sure what to do, then I had to run for three miles back with nothing on in front of loads of ladies walking their dogs.
“It’s funny now but it wasn’t funny at the time.”
His playing days may be over but Pfannenstiel’s passion for environmental issues is now taking his career into even more unpredictable directions.