The Confederation of African Football (CAF) and Dutch giant Ajax Amsterdam have sent birthday greetings to former Super Eagles winger Tijani Babangida, Completesports.com reports.
CAF and Ajax took to their verified Twitter handles to send out the birthday wishes.
According to CAF:”Happy Birthday to the former Nigerian international Tijani Babangida!
“Have a nice day!”
While Ajax wrote:”Happy birthday, Tijani Babangida.”
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Born in Kaduna, Nigeria, at the age of 17, Babangida left local club Niger Tornadoes to sign with Dutch Eredivisie side Roda JC in 1991, after performing well at the All-Africa Games that same year.
Babangida was loaned out to Roda’s league rivals VVV-Venlo until the end of the season. Babangida made a total of six league appearances, scoring three times in the 1991–92 season.
Despite Venlo’s relegation to, 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.
The following season, he returned to Roda, immediately becoming a first-team regular and made a total of 29 league appearances for Roda that season, scoring 11 goals.
He joined Ajax in the summer of 1996 in a long-anticipated €5 million move, appeared in 29 league games, scoring four goals in his first season with Ajax.
He went on to play an important role in Ajax’s European campaign, scoring the winning goal in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League encounter with Atlético Madrid that put Ajax through to the semi-finals of the competition.
In 1994, he made his Super Eagles debut, appeared at the 2000 and 2002 AFCONs and the 1998 World Cup in France.
Also, he was a member of the Dream Team that won the gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
By James Agberebi
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COMMENTS
Happy birthday to you, great guy. One of the silent legends of Nigerian football