Tijani Babangida

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Tijani Babangida
Personal information
Full name Tijani Babangida
Date of birth (1973-09-25) 25 September 1973 (age 50)
Place of birth Kaduna, Nigeria
Height 1.69 m (5 ft 7 in)[1][2]
Position(s) Winger
Youth career
Arewa Textiles
1990–1991 Niger Tornadoes
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1991–1996
Roda JC
78 (26)
1991–1993VVV-Venlo (loan) 34 (19)
1996–2003 Ajax 77 (20)
2000–2001Gençlerbirliği (loan) 12 (2)
2001–2002Vitesse (loan) 14 (1)
2002–2003
Al-Ittihad
(loan)
5 (0)
2003–2004 Changchun Yatai 29 (8)
Total 249 (76)
International career
1994–2004 Nigeria 36 (5)
Medal record
Representing  Nigeria
Men's Football
Gold medal – first place 1996 Atlanta Team Competition
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Tijani Babangidapronunciation

Roda JC Ajax, and Vitesse.[4] winning the Eredivisie plus KNVB Cup
double with the latter side.

He played over 30 games for his national side, including four at the 1998 World Cup in France. He participated in two Africa Cup of Nations tournaments and won the 1996 Olympics with Nigeria. Babangida made his international debut in 1994. He lost his place in the squad right before the 2002 World Cup. After a two-year lay-off from international football, Babangida was recalled to the Nigeria team for the 2004 African Cup of Nations preparations in Tunisia.

Club career

Early career

Babangida was born in

Roda JC, after performing well at the 1991 All-Africa Games.[5] He was loaned out to Roda's league rivals VVV-Venlo until the end of the season.[6] Babangida made a total of six league appearances, scoring three times in the 1991–92 season.[7] Despite Venlo's relegation to Eerste Divisie,[8]
Babangida remained at the club for another year.

Babangida received his breakthrough in the 1992–93 season as he scored 16 goals, helping Venlo to achieve promotion to Eredivisie.[7][9] The following season, Babangida returned to Roda, immediately becoming a first-team regular with the Kerkrade side. Babangida made a total of 29 league appearances for Roda that season, scoring 11 goals.[7]

Babangida spent two more seasons at Roda JC. Babangida's 10 league goals in 1995–96, made him the club's top scorer that season.

Olimpija Ljubljana, Roda's first European campaign in five years. Roda went on to beat the Slovenian side 5–2 on aggregate, but lost to Benfica in the second round. Solid performances at both international and club level led to interest from Dutch side Ajax, as Louis van Gaal was looking to replace Babangida's compatriot Finidi George,[3] who had recently departed to Real Betis
.

Ajax

Babangida joined Ajax in the summer of 1996 in a long-anticipated €5 million move.[1] He appeared in 29 league games, scoring four goals in his first season with Ajax.[7] Babangida played an important role in Ajax's European campaign, scoring three goals, including one against Auxerre in the group stages,[11] and the winning goal in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League encounter with Atlético Madrid at the Vicente Calderón Stadium, that put Ajax through to the semi-finals of the competition.[12]

Babangida had a successful second season with the club as he helped Ajax to another Eredivisie title with a 39-point gap over PSV Eindhoven, while his 13 league goals in 26 games made him the club's third top scorer, behind Shota Arveladze and Jari Litmanen.[13] Ajax clinched the second title of the season with a 5–0 victory over PSV in the KNVB Cup final, with the Nigerian scoring the first goal.[1]

Babangida's fortunes started to change towards the end of 1998. Having missed the start of the season with malaria,

Porto.[15] Overall, Babangida appeared in 18 league games for Ajax that season, starting only seven.[1] He didn't feature in the Dutch Cup final where Ajax managed to retain the trophy after beating Fortuna Sittard in the final.[1]

Babangida saw even less playing time after the 1999 season, as he made a mere eight appearances the following year and didn't play a single game in the first half of the 2000–01 season.[7] In an attempt to offload the player, Ajax came to an agreement with the Turkish Süper Lig side Gençlerbirliği, who signed Babangida on a half-year loan deal until the end of the season.[16]

Later career

The spell in Turkey, however, proved to be an unhappy time for Babangida and the

Vitesse instead.[16] Another loan move followed. First team player under Koeman, Babangida subsequently lost his place in the starting line-up,[18] when Ronald Koeman left for Ajax and was replaced by Edward Sturing.[19]

He then signed a six-month loan deal with

José Oscar Bernardi.[20][21][22] Looking to resolve the deadlock with Ajax, Babangida returned to Amsterdam to continue negotiating a termination of his contract with the club.[23] On 30 April 2003, three years since Babangida played his last game for the club, it was announced that both sides had come to an agreement and the player's contract was finally terminated.[24]

As a

Jia B title and earned him a recall to the national team for their preparations for the 2004 African Cup of Nations.[28] Babangida scored four more goals for Yatai the following season before retiring in 2004.[29]

International career

Babangida received his first call-up to the senior Nigeria national team for a pre-World Cup friendly against Romania in 1994. He then played in a friendly against Georgia, but did not make the final squad for 1994 World Cup.[1]

Babangida's international chances were partly limited due to the fact that he often found himself behind

Yokohama International Stadium (known as the Nissan Stadium nowadays), playing for FIFA XI in a game against the unified team of Japan and South Korea.[35]

Babangida only made his

South Africa to put Nigeria through to the final against Cameroon, where they drew 2–2, before being narrowly defeated 3–4 on penalties.[38][39] He appeared in all of his team's five games, starting two.[37]

He then featured in Nigeria's run to the 2002 World Cup finals, scoring two important first-half goals against Ghana on the final day of the 2002 World Cup qualification, helping Nigeria seal the final African region World Cup berth.[40] Babangida played in all of his team's games at the 2002 Nations Cup, but was dropped ahead of the World Cup, alongside several other experienced players like Sunday Oliseh and Finidi George.[41] He was recalled to the national team for the pre-Nations Cup training camp in Faro, Portugal in 2004, but did not make the final squad, making the 2002 Cup of Nations his last major international tournament.[42]

Personal life

Babangida, sometimes nicknamed "TJ",[17] was born into a large family in the city of Kaduna in 1973. He was married to Rabah (now his ex), the sister of Daniel Amokachi's wife.[1] Two of his nine brothers, Ibrahim and Haruna are also footballers.[43] The former spent five years at Volendam, while the latter became the youngest ever player in the history of Spanish football to have a buy-out clause in his contract and the second youngest player to appear for FC Barcelona, when he made his debut in 1998 as a fifteen-year-old.[43][44][45] In 1997 Babangida acted in a commercial ad for ABN-AMRO in which he points out his hesitations about a contract of some sort. In 2004, Babangida signed a $2 million contract to bring new footballs to Nigeria.[46] The same year, he opened a shopping mall in Kaduna.[46] Upon retiring from professional football, Babangida has been working as a football agent.[47]

Career statistics

Club

Appearances and goals by club, season and competition:Source:[7]
Club Season League
Division Apps Goals
VVV-Venlo (loan) 1991–92 Eredivisie 6 3
1992–93
Eerste Divisie 28 16
Total 34 19
Roda
1993–94 Eredivisie 29 11
1994–95 20 5
1995–96 29 10
Total 78 26
Ajax 1996–97 Eredivisie 25 4
1997–98 26 13
1998–99 18 2
1999–2000 8 1
Total 77 20
Gençlerbirliği (loan)
2000–01
Turkish First Football League 12 2
Vitesse
(loan)
2001–02 Eredivisie 14 1
Al-Ittihad (loan)
2002–03
Saudi Premier League
5 0
Changchun Yatai 2003 Jia-B League 9 4
2004 League One 20 4
Total 29 8
Career total 249 76

International

Appearances and goals by national team and year[7]
National team Year Apps Goals
Nigeria 1994 2 0
1995 0 0
1996 0 0
1997 2 0
1998 7 1
1999 3 0
2000 10 2
2001 7 2
2002 5 0
Total 36 5
Scores and results list Nigeria's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Babangida goal.
List of international goals scored by Tijani Babangida
No. Date Venue Opponent Score Result Competition
1 28 June 1998 Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France  Denmark 1–4 1–4 1998 World Cup
2 10 February 2000
National Stadium, Lagos
, Nigeria
 South Africa 1–0 2–0 2000 African Cup of Nations
3 2–0
4 29 July 2001
Liberation Stadium, Port Harcourt
, Nigeria
 Ghana 2–0 3–0 2002 World Cup qualifier
5 3–0

Honours

References

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  2. ^ Tijani Babangida at National-Football-Teams.com
  3. ^ a b "Robson poised to sign Porto keeper". The Independent. London. 5 June 1996. Retrieved 28 October 2010.
  4. ^ We spraken Tijani Babangida over mooie vrouwen, PES en Louis van Gaal vice.com
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External links