Per a report on Theathletic.com Oghenekaro Etebo who recently joined newly promoted English Premier League side Watford have been on the radar of the owners since 2014 while he was still playing for Warri Wolves in the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL).
Etebo joined the team on a season long loan deal from Stoke City with Watford having the option of signing him permanently next summer at the end of his loan.
However Gino Pozzo of the Pozzo family, the owners of both Serie A side Udinese and Watford first saw the Nigerian in 2014 when he came for trials at Udinese.
Below is excerpts from the article on Watford’s long standing interest in Etebo which finally came to fruition last week when he joined to swell the Nigerian contingent at the club.
“At last, finally you’re here,” Gino Pozzo is understood to have said when he greeted Oghenekaro Etebo, better known as Peter, at the Watford training ground.
The warm greeting was a nod to a long-standing pursuit of the Nigerian from the Italian owner. The midfielder had a trial at Udinese in 2014 before returning to his club Warri Wolves back in Nigeria.
Then he spent two years with Feirense in Portugal from 2016 to 2018, with the second season on loan at Las Palmas in Spain.
Pozzo again tried to sign him in 2018. “When he came into Stoke, there was an offer on the table from Watford, and he would have liked to have gone there,” says a source close to Etebo.
“He weighed up the two options and felt Stoke (who had just been relegated) would be a good challenge having brought in players to get them back into the Premier League, which obviously didn’t materialise.