22 year old forward Joshua Zirkzee is one of the players who have taken the Italian Serie A by storm this season with eight goals and two assists in 17 games, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Zirkzee has experienced a turnaround in his career after a forgettable two years experience, where he went from one of the highly rated teen stars at Bayern Munich to loan spells which yielded nothing spectaculars.
However under Thiago Motta, he has found the sort of form that many envisaged when he broke onto the scene as a 17 year old four years ago at Bayern Munich.
Bologna signed Zirkzee from Bayern Munich 18 months ago and he cost them €8.5 million as well as 35% on any future capital gain. One other condition is that Bayern have the right to match future offers for Zirkzee should they want to bring him back.
As things currently stand, Bologna would need to receive a bid of €40m for them to sit at the table. He is a player that both Napoli and Milan are thinking seriously about for next season.
Born to a Nigerian father, his senior international future was expected to spark a tug of war as he is eligible for both Nigeria and the Netherlands. But it looks like that won’t be the case with the forward who was once approached to play for Nigeria by erstwhile coach Gernot Rohr.
He has only one national team in his head at the moment and it is the Dutch national team, the team that he has represented at various youth levels, effectively ruling himself out as an option for the senior national team of Nigeria at next year’s Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d’Ivoire.
Ade Emmanuel
