Nigeria’s Super Eagles legend, Austin Okocha said one of his career regrets was not winning the prestigious African footballer of the year before his retirement from football.
Okocha was arguably one of the greatest players from the continent who failed to win the award.
The former Super Eagles Captain however came close to winning it twice but, he narrowly lost to Morrocan legend, Mustapha Hadji in 1998 and Samuel Eto’o in 2004.
Okocha who won the BBC African footballer of the year thrice said he deserved to win the award.
“Well, I think I don’t want to sound greedy, but I’ve had an amazing career, I never thought I would make it that big.
“But of course, if you look back, there’s always a time that you say oh maybe you could’ve done a bit better than you did. And if I’m to say, I’ll say, I regret not winning the African Footballer of the year.
“I thought I did enough to have won it because it was not a fluke that I won BBC player of the year three years in a row and not manage to win that CAF award, but I mean maybe it was not meant to be, he said.
Packaged by Lanre Olabisi
