Olympique de Marseille scout Omar Sciolla is in Nigeria on a one-week scouting mission to discover talents.
The scout is working with his Nigerian representative, Anderson Chijioke Egbochue popularly known in football circles as Mario.
Sciolla was in Ajegunle, a Lagos suburb renowned for the production of world-class footballers last week to watch games organised for the purpose of his mission.
Pleased with the quality of talents he saw, he decided to spread his search network across other centres in Lagos and a few other states. Sciolla said he is motivated to embark on the mission to Nigeria given the rich history of Nigerian players who featured not just in the French League but also particularly for Olympique Marseille.
“Two Nigerian players distinguished themselves in the colours of Olympique Marseille talking about Victor Agali and Taye Taiwo,” begins Sciolla
“They formed part of the history of Nigerian footballers who made French Ligue Un thick. They actually followed the footprints of Samson Siasia (Nantes), Victor Ikpeba (AS Monaco) and a host of others.”
“We are further inspired by the fact that Vincent (Enyeama), Peter (Osaze Odemwingie) and lately Victor (Osimhen) had splendid times in France for Lille.
“We intend to discover more of these qualities of players because we believe Nigeria is blessed with loads of them. It is always better if you fly down yourself to see first hand and directly assess the standards of the players than rely only on videos and information.
“We trust Anderson (Chijioke) who has spoken with us at length to convince us to embark on this trip. He has an eye for quality and talent. Working with him has been a blessing for us and we hope for a better partnership and a brighter future.
“We have seen some players with potential to feature in Europe but we are still working to have a pool of them. We are going to other centres and even outside Lagos.”
On his part, Anderson Chijioke Egbochue appealed that stakeholders should come together to work for a common goal of bettering Nigerian football.
“The talents are here. All we need to do is to adequately harness and work closer for the gain of all. It’s a win-win thing as far as I’m concerned.”