The story of the international future of Chelsea midfielder Lesley Ugochukwu would have been a lot different if only the then coach of the senior national team of Nigeria was proactive, OwnGoalNigeria.com can exclusively reveal.
Ugochukwu is the nephew of former Nigeria international defender Onyekachi Apam and at the age of 16 he was already a first team player at French Ligue 1 side Rennes.
His rise is similar to that of Real Madrid midfielder Eduardo Camavinga who also had his breakthrough at the club at around the same age and left two years later for Real Madrid. Ugochukwu also towed the same path by moving to Chelsea after the same period.
At Chelsea, the 20 year old is still working his way into the first team and presently has nine appearances to his name in all competitions including six in the English Premier League.
He got his first taste of international football in 2021, when he was called up to the U18 team of France. One year to that time he was pushing to be involved with the Nigerian team per what we exclusively gathered.
” I can tell you that his father and his uncle Apam were excited when they heard about the interest from Nigeria. I handed the father’s number to former Super Eagles coach Gernot Rohr, but he didn’t get in touch until almost a year later”, a source told OwnGoalNigeria.com.
” When Rohr finally got in contact, a meeting was set up with the boy and his family but Rohr didn’t turn up. That left his father really angry and the boy was left discouraged, so one year later the call from France came and he jumped on it. It was when Rohr now became really serious in trying to wrestle him from France”.
