Michael (“Mike”) Edirin Obiku (born 24 September 1968 in

Warri The city of Warri is an oil hub within South-South Nigeria and houses an annex of the Delta State Government House. Warri City is one of the major hubs of the petroleum industry in Nigeria. Warri, Udu, Okpe and Uvwie are the commercial ...

) is a retired

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

striker. He is currently coach at

Feyenoord Rotterdam Feyenoord Rotterdam () is a Dutch professional football club based in Rotterdam, which plays in the Eredivisie, the top tier in Dutch football. Founded as Wilhelmina in 1908, the club changed to various names before settling on being called ...

's Soccer Schools.

Club career

Obiku started his career with Flash Flamingoes in his native Nigeria and earned a move to highfliers

Iwuanyanwu Nationale Heartland Football Club, founded as Spartans F.C., later known as Iwuanyanwu Nationale from 1985 to 2006, is a Nigerian football club based in Owerri. The team play their home games at Dan Anyiam Stadium (and the Okigwe Stadium as their tempora ...

. From there, he moved on to become very successful in Cyprus. Then

chairman Jorien van den Herik, who had a house on Cyprus, lured him to

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

. On club level he won the Dutch

Eredivisie The Eredivisie (; "Honour Division" or "Premier Division") is a professional association football league in the Netherlands and the highest level of the Dutch football league system. The league was founded in 1956, two years after the start o ...

in 1993 and the

KNVB Cup The KNVB Beker (; ), branded as the TOTO KNVB Beker for sponsorship reasons, is a competition in the Netherlands organised by the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) since 1898. It was based on the format of the English FA Cup. Outside the N ...

1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

and

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

with Feyenoord. He later became the first Nigerian to play in the

J1 League The , the J.League or the for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Japan and the highest level of the Japanese football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation ...

. In 1999–2000 he returned to

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

and to his favourite team

Anorthosis Famagusta F.C. Anorthosis Famagusta (), commonly known as Anorthosis in English or Anorthosi in Greek, is a Cypriot football club, part of the Famagusta multi-sport club founded in 1911 in Varosha, Famagusta.

He scored 13 goals and helped his club to win the

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

for the 4th time in a row in Cyprus. After so many years Obiku is still one of the legends of Anorthosis Famagusta FC and he is considered one of the all-time best players who ever played not only for the club but also in Cyprus. The fans never forgot his first spell in the club in 1989–1992 scoring 36 goals and gave him the nick "Black Diamond".

Memorable moments

When Obiku scored for Feyenoord, he usually took off his shirt, threw it on the ground and danced around it. During a match against Willem II he jumped in the fences surrounding the pitch and injured his hands while grabbing the barbed wire. He did play on but had to have treatment on his bleeding hands first. On 8 March 1995 he won over the Rotterdam supporters when he scored the golden goal in the

quarter-finals against eternal rivals

Ajax Amsterdam Amsterdamsche Football Club Ajax (), also known as AFC Ajax, Ajax Amsterdam, or commonly Ajax, is a Dutch professional Association football, football Football team, club based in Amsterdam, that plays in the , the top tier in Dutch football. ...

. Ajax won the Champions League that season but were finished off by Obiku thanks to a marvellous solo effort.

International career

He represented the Nigerian national team at the

1988 African Cup of Nations The 1988 African Cup of Nations was the 16th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the association football championship of Africa (Confederation of African Football, CAF). It was hosted by Morocco, who replaced original host Zambia. Just like in ...

, played in two World Cup qualifying matches and played 12 minutes at the

1988 Summer Olympics The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and officially branded as Seoul 1988 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. 159 nations were represe ...

.Men's Olympic Football Tournament
– FIFA He played his final international match in April 1993 against

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

References

External links

Nigerian Players.com
* * *
Real Mallorca bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Obiku, Michael 1968 births Living people Nigerian men's footballers Nigeria men's international footballers Footballers at the 1988 Summer Olympics Olympic footballers for Nigeria 1988 African Cup of Nations players Anorthosis Famagusta FC players Feyenoord players Helsingborgs IF players RCD Mallorca players Avispa Fukuoka players AZ Alkmaar players APOEL FC players Eredivisie players La Liga players Segunda División players Allsvenskan players Cypriot First Division players J1 League players Nigerian expatriate men's footballers Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Cyprus Heartland F.C. players Expatriate men's footballers in Cyprus Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Japan Expatriate men's footballers in Japan Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Spain Expatriate men's footballers in Spain Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands Footballers from Warri Expatriate men's footballers in the Netherlands Men's association football forwards Bendel United F.C. players 20th-century Nigerian sportsmen