Serie A-Player Profile: Oguchi Onyewu
Onyewu is an American national footballer, who plays in the Italian football league for A.C Milan. Oguchi was born in Washington D.C but his parents migrated from Nigeria to the United States before his birth. He also has two brothers, namely Uche and Nonye along with that, he has two sisters as well who are named Chi-Chi and Ogechi.
Onyewu grew up in the state of Maryland and attended St. Andrew Apostle and Sherwood High School. He played football for two years in high school. Oguchi speaks French and English quite fluently and also holds a Belgian citizenship along with an American and Nigerian nationality.
He also has the privilege to be the tallest outfield player in the history of U.S.A’s national soccer team at six foot four inches. After playing two years of college football at Clemson University, Onyewu moved to Europe when has signed by Metz, a French Ligue 1 club. In 2003, he was loaned by the French club to La Louviere in Belgium, after spending a year on loan with Louviere, he was again sent on loan by the Ligue 1 club to Standard Liege.
His loan move to Liege was made permanent after the 2004-2005 season in Belgian football and he was also named as the best foreign player in the league for the year 2005. In 2006, Onyewu won U.S soccer’s best athlete of the year award, in doing so he became the first defender after Alexi Lalas in 1995 to achieve this feat. In the winter of 2007, the young American defender went on a loan move to the English club Newcastle United, at the end of the loan move Onyewu went back to Belgian football with Standard Liege.
In the 2007-2008 season, Onyewu became one of the best defenders in European football as he led Standard’s defense. He became crucial to their first team plans and was part of the side for the twenty nine unbeaten streak that the club embarked upon, a streak which ended in their triumph as Champions of Belgian league football. After spending one more season with Standard Liege in Belgian football, Onyewu was signed by A.C Milan on a three year contract in the summer of 2009. His debut for the Rosseneri came in a World Football Challenge match against Club America.
The powerful American made played his first competitive match for Milan against Zurich at San Siro as he replaced the veteran Italian defender Alessandro Nesta as a substitute during the last minutes of the match. The European cup encounter between Milan and Zurich ended in a loss for the Italian club side.
However, Onyewu went onto miss the rest of the 2009-2010 season at Milan due to a bad knee injury but Milan still displayed their trust in the young defenders capabilities as they offered him a one year extension to his contract. Oguchi signed the extension but upon his request it was decided that the extended year would contain no salary packages for the American born defender.
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