Ahmed Musa is the most-capped player in the history of the Super Eagles. Since making his debut in 2010, the 31-year-old has made 108 appearances for Nigeria, scoring 16 goals in the process. The Jos-born striker has enjoyed a long and varied football career to date.
Musa’s current club, Sivasspor, plays in the Turkish Super Lig, which is one of the most covered European football leagues by the leading sportsbooks. With the likes of Musa, Bright Osayi-Samuel and Kenneth Omeruo all playing competitively in Turkey’s top flight, it’s no surprise that Nigerian-licensed sites cover the Super Lig in their pre-game and live betting markets, with some matches even covered by live streams available on desktop and mobile devices.
His Sivasspor team have made a solid start to the 2023/24 campaign, with ten points from their opening eight games, leaving them just six points adrift of fourth-placed Besiktas. Nevertheless, they’re still considered 24/1 outsiders with Betano to clinch a top-four finish this term.
Although Musa is still going strong, as he reaches his early thirties, will retirement from the men’s national team happen anytime soon? With that in mind, we’ve looked back at his meteoric rise to feared international goal scorer.
Musa announced himself to the world stage in 2014
At the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Ahmed Musa became the first Nigerian to score twice in a World Cup game. Musa notched a brace against Lionel Messi’s Argentina, firmly establishing his name in world football. At the time, Musa was a hot property. He was midway through a four-year spell with Russian side CSKA Moscow, where he would score 42 goals in 125 competitive appearances.
Before his move to CSKA Moscow, Musa had a string of scouts from top European clubs watching his every move at former club, VVV-Venlo. In 2011, Goal.com even listed him inside the world’s top 100 football prospects in the world.
From Russia with Love
By the end of the 2015-16 campaign, Musa became one of just seven players aged 23 or lower to score double figures in back-to-back seasons across all of Europe’s top-flight leagues. Musa’s speed and acceleration caught the eye of the shock 2015/16 English Premier League champions, Leicester City. The Foxes, keen to build on their unprecedented success, forked out a club record fee of £16.6m to sign him from CSKA Moscow.
Musa arrived at the King Power Stadium with huge expectations. He was statistically proven to be about as fast as Leicester’s existing talisman, Jamie Vardy, with Leicester fans hoping he would prove an ideal fit for the Foxes’ lightning-fast counter-attacking style of play. Unfortunately for Leicester – and Musa – the move to the East Midlands club never really worked out. Notching just two goals in 21 appearances for the champions, Musa was promptly farmed back out to former club CSKA on loan in 2017-18.
Ironically, Musa would find his shooting boots again in the Russian capital, scoring six in ten appearances. That form was enough to earn him a big-money switch to Saudi Pro League side Al Nassr in 2018-19. However, after a promising debut season scoring seven in 24 games, he managed just two more goals during his time in the Middle East.
Spells back in his homeland and Turkey awaited
Musa returned to Nigeria to finish the 2020-21 season with a Nigerian Professional League side, Kano Pillars in a bid to regain match sharpness.
Fortunately, Turkish Super Lig side Fatih Karagumruk saw enough to take a chance on Musa on a two-year deal from 2021-22. Musa scored twice in 31 Super Lig appearances. He was released to fellow Turkish Super Lig side Sivasspor for the 2022-23 season and he failed to score a single goal in 17 appearances last campaign. In two 2023-24 appearances for Sivasspor so far this term, Musa hasn’t found the scoresheet.
Although Musa’s club career may not have scaled the heights that many anticipated, he is still a hugely effective wide forward, whose raw pace and power continues to pose problems for even the most athletic of defences. Musa was recently rested from the Nigerian national squad for their AFCON group stage game with Sao Tome and Principe, although with the Super Eagles already home and hosed for the finals there was no need for head coach Jose Peseiro to risk him.
With that in mind, Musa will continue to make himself available for the national team until he’s not called upon, with international retirement still some way off yet.
