GRASS TO GRACE (30): The Rise of Ademola Lookman and Why he deserves the 2024 CAF Player of the Year Award

As the 2024 CAF African Footballer of the Year award slowly approaches, debates on who will win the men’s category have surfaced on social media. The most popular name on everyone’s lips in the Super Eagles and Atalanta Squad since the last football season is “Ademola Lookman”. Now, lets look into Ademola Lookman and the 2024 CAF African Footballer of the Year Award.

To many, his journey to stardom started in southeast London, Peckham but that’s not true. Here is the Grass to Grace story of Ademola Olajade Alade Ayolola Lookman and why he is the favorite candidate to win the 2024 CAF Player of the year Award. 

This is another Naija “Japa Story”.  Ademola Lookman’s parents who were both Nigerians decided to leave the shores of Nigeria for greener pastures in the late 90s and at this time, Lookman had two older sisters who were born in Nigeria as he was the only one born in Peckham, London.

Ademola Lookman was born on 20 October 1997 in Wandsworth, Greater London, to Nigerian parents. He attended St Thomas the Apostle College in Peckham where he achieved three A*s and five As at GCSE. His father and one of his sisters were in Nigeria while he, one of his sisters, and his mum were in London.

His mum had to do all sorts of jobs, cleaning jobs, dinner lady jobs, and anything she could get her hands on to put food on the table and clothes over Ademola and his sister but that wasn’t even enough.

There were times when they didn’t have food at home and Ademola would eat at his friend’s place before coming home because he didn’t want to ask his mother for food knowing how hard she was working.

Ademola told his parents he wanted to be an accountant but deep down he knew he just wanted to play football professionally, but he still wrote and aced his GCSE scoring 5As, 4 Bs and 1 C.

His desire to become a footballer heightened when he lost a teammate, in the amateur football team he was playing at, Waterloo FC.

He wasn’t spotted by any London club as a kid so he continued playing Sunday League football for Waterloo and in the streets and cages of South London that have produced the likes of Sancho, Loftus Cheek, and Odoi.

At the age of 16, Lookman was selected to play for London Counties in a friendly game against Charlton’s Academy in 2013. He started the game on the bench but someone got injured and he was brought on, even though his team lost 1-0, the officials at Charlton liked him and invited him back.

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He joined Charlton in 2015 progressing through their U18 and U21 teams and finally making his debut on 3 November 2015 and he continued to impress.

In 2017, Everton signed him in a total deal package of £11M  from Charlton in the January transfer window for the 19-year-old on a 4-year deal.

He scored on his debut against Man City when he was brought on from the bench in added time but his Everton career didn’t go as planned and Coach Sam Allardyce loaned him to German side, Leipzig.

On his debut, coming on from the bench, he dribbled his way through Borrusia Monchengladbach’s defense to score a late winner for Leipzig.

In the summer of 2019, Leipzig made his loan move a permanent deal but he didn’t get enough playing time and this led to him going on another loan to Fulham in the EPL. He played a season for Fulham where he scored 4 goals with his lowest point being a failed panenka penalty in the last minute against West Ham and his team went on to lose the match 1-0.

The next season, Leicester signed him on another season’s loan, and he had a successful season scoring 6 goals in 26 games, this led to Atlanta spending €15M to sign him on a 4-year deal. In his first season at Atlanta, he was voted Atlanta’s player of the season after scoring 15 goals in 33 games.

He also switched his national team allegiance from England to Nigeria after representing England in the U-17 and U-20 where he won the U-20 FIFA World Cup with the team.

He was one of Nigeria’s star players at the AFCON 2023 where he scored 3 goals but ended up losing the finals to the host country Ivory Coast.

4 months after losing the AFCON final, he led Atalanta to the Coppa Italia final and they lost to Juventus. Few weeks after, Atalanta goes against the Bayer Leverkusen team that has not lost a single game the entire season but, an Ademola Lookman’s hat trick that broke records gave his team, Atalanta their first European trophy.

Ademola Lookman telling his story…

Why Ademola Lookman Deserves the African footballer of the Year Award

As things stand, Ademola Lookman is in the best position to be crowned the African Footballer of the Year 2024 against the likes of Brahim Diaz, Muhammed Salah and Achraf Hakimi and here is a look into reasons why is the favorite candidate.

Ademola Lookman’s individual stats as a footballer for Atlanta in the 2023/2024 series A and Europa League season were exceptional and the Nigerian international has also carried the form into the 2024/2025 season at the club.

Ademola lookman scored 16 goals and provided 8 assists in 42 games for Atalanta last season while he Scored 3 goals and provided 1 assist in 4 games for Nigeria in the 2023 AFCON. This is in conjunction with many star performances and Man of the Match awards throughout the season.

Ademola Lookman became the only African player to be shortlisted in the final 30 nominees for the Ballon d’Or 2024 Men’s Player of the Year award. This is a huge booster for his quest for the African Footballer of the Year 2024, as him being the only player with a nod in the men’s category recognizes his exceptional abilities in the  2023/2024 season.

It remains to be seen if he would make the final top 10 shortlist at the award ceremony but following the naming of Victor Osimhen as the winner of the CAF player of the year in 2023, which the Nigerian international became the fifth Nigerian footballer ever to win the award and the first in this era to do so, fans tease Ademola Lookman as the perfect successor.

Sources: Daily Nigerian  , FourFourTwo on Youtube ,  @Sports_Doctor2 on X

By Francis Blessing