It took just seven minutes to see what all the fuss had been about. John Obi Mikel had been more a custody battle than a household name before crossing the touchline in Port Said, green No 8 on his back and eagerly watched by about 20,000 spectators. Suddenly he was no longer a prodigy but a performer.
Four minutes into his competitive international debut the midfielder created a goal; it took only three more minutes for Mikel to score. “I think you can see he’s worth all the talk,” ventured Nigeria’s assistant coach, Daniel Amokachi.
The match, versus Zimbabwe, had been goalless when Mikel entered. His maiden flight as a Super Eagle turned it into 2-0. Four days later, Mikel would be asked to play in the starting line-up. He was decisive in supplying the pass for the equaliser on the way to a 2-1 win over Senegal and starred again in yesterday’s African Cup of Nations quarter-final victory over Tunisia.
What next? After the tournament, he’ll return to his professional limbo. Manchester United and Chelsea both say they have a stake in a footballer who turns 19 in April, and if, as seems likely, he ends up in London, it will be at considerable cost to the relationship between English football’s wealthiest clubs.
Fifa is investigating various claims of entitlement by interested parties, and if its dossier includes half the allegations made by Mikel’s agents, Old Trafford staff or the Norwegian club Lyn Oslo — who maintain they sold him to United — it is dealing with a tale of alleged forged contracts, death threats, racism and an episode that United ’s assistant coach, Carlos Queiroz, likened to a “kidnapping”.
Not the least of Mikel’s challenges has been to cocoon himself from all this at the Cup of Nations, an event long earmarked as the most significant of his young professional career. On the morning of his first start for his country, he learnt how bilious the battle had turned with news that United had asked Fifa to suspend Chelsea from all transfer activity for 12 months. That was on Tuesday.
In the evening, Mikel played with poise, intelligence and impact, although he later admitted: “It has been a lot for me to think about, and, as a young footballer, too much for me to concentrate solely on my game. The important thing is that I have nice people around me.”
He would count some of his Nigeria colleagues, who seem to like and admire him, among those. Jay-Jay Okocha, the outgoing superstar, reckons Mikel is “the best I’ve seen, a natural talent of the type that rarely emerges now”.
Amokachi has been taken by Mikel’s poise, maturity and composure: “For a young player, he’s very confident and comfortable on the ball. Remember, these are his first matches for the Nigerian team, and in a major competition.”
Everton’s Joseph Yobo, the Nigeria captain, believes that working with Mikel is to recall the introduction of another exceptional teenager. Yobo explained: “When Wayne Rooney was that young at Everton, he had the same confidence and belief in himself. That’s very important. And young Wayne’s now one of the best in the world.”
John Chiekube Obi Mikel's story was already an odyssey before it was a corporate scandal. He was born in Jos in central Nigeria, the son of a civil servant who had been a footballer of local renown. An older brother had some ability and plays as a goalkeeper in the Nigerian First Division. But young John had the most conspicuous gifts and shortly after his 15th birthday he made his debut in the top domestic level for Plateau United.
By 2002 he had been invited to join Nigeria’s under-17 squad. The country has a strong tradition at age-group tournaments and Mikel joined a party preparing for the world championships in Finland. The coach at the time was Augustine Eguavoen. His first impressions were mixed, although he would soon be persuaded that here was an athlete of unusual potential.
“No doubt, he’s a great player,” says Eguavoen, “and I give him a lot of credit. It is difficult to excel suddenly at a big tournament like the Nations Cup when so young.” Eguavoen might take some credit. He is Nigeria’s head coach, gave Mikel his senior debut in a friendly last August and can hardly have imagined so instant a display of gratitude when he granted him his first competitive minutes against Zimbabwe 10 days ago.
He knew Mikel could deliver a dead ball tellingly with his right foot, but had concerns that, with a gap of five months since his last game for Lyn, he might be rusty. Hardly. Mikel floated his first corner on to the head of Christian Obodo: 1-0 to Nigeria. His goal that made it 2-0 was spectacular. Making as if to shoot with his left foot, he switched to his right to throw off a marker before finish ing low and hard from the edge of the area.
Mikel is tall, upright and sufficiently broad and brave to live with the bouncers of central midfield. Against Senegal, he was policed by the mammoth Papa Bouba Diop, of Fulham, and Newcastle’s Amdy Faye. He still engineered enough space to release his considered passes.
Amokachi maintains that we have not seen even half of Mikel’s repertoire: “That position he played against Senegal is not his strongest. He can play as the man in the hole behind the strikers, but you can also use him as a defensive midfielder, and he can work easily on the left or right. He’s unique.” Will he suit the Premiership? “Sometimes it can take time to adapt,” says Amokachi, once a striker at Everton, “but if you’re a special player, and he is, then he’ll do well. I hope things work out. He’s got two of the best clubs in the world arguing over him.”
That argument started at least 3Å years ago, according to Mikel’s representatives. They say the first contact with scouts representing United came after the 2003 Meridien Cup, an event involving age-group national teams from Uefa and the African confederation. They followed up by inviting him to visit Old Trafford.
By the end of that autumn’s Under-17 World Championship, word had spread. Mikel made a strong impression in a team denied a place in the quarter-finals only on the drawing of lots. Among other clubs, Chelsea expressed their interest in a group of Nigerian players, including Mikel, and were informed of United’s earlier inquiries. Mikel’s agent, John Shittu, says that over the course of the next 12 months, his client became frustrated by United’s delay in confirming their enthusiasm.
Mikel and some of his contemporaries were invited to train at Chelsea. One, Ezekiel Sarki, stayed on, and the pair remained in contact, with Sarki relaying details of his London experience to a now restless Mikel back in Nigeria.
Looking for a place to advance his football education, Mikel was advised to try South Africa. He spent eight months with Ajax Cape Town, a club established in the 1990s partly as a feeder for Ajax Amsterdam. Shittu says his company funded Mikel during this period and during his next move to Lyn, where his career would take its disputed turns.
Lyn argue that Mikel signed a contract entitling the Norwegian club to transfer him to United. Mikel’s advisers argue that he never agreed to sign the senior contract that Lyn offered him when he turned 18. Mikel, who has said he wants to join Chelsea, tried to leave Lyn in June, two months after his 18th birthday. Obliged by Fifa to return, he finished the Norwegian season in September, having played six games in all.
He was short of match practice when he joined up with Nigeria but in good spirits despite his status being the subject of legal proceedings in Norway and his case under investigation by Fifa.
“One of the good things about him is that he’s not a quiet lad,” says Yobo. “He likes to socialise with the older guys. He’ll go far, I’m sure. There could have been a lot of problems, but his family and friends have looked after him. He’s ignored the issues and let his football do the talking.”
But Mikel feels impatient to advance his club career now that his international adventure is launched. “I want people to realise I have a future,” he says.
