‘It's Going To Be Hard, Hard Work'

Russia 2018 is a chance for the continent’s most populous country to try and become the first African side to ever get as far as the final four. Leon Balogun’s game is now integral to the Super Eagles.

- Mark Gleeson

When Leon Balogun headed off to Nigeria in 2015 to play for the country in the World Cup qualifiers, it was the first time the Bundesliga-based central defender had ever been to the giant West African country.

Although his surname is quintessentially Nigerian, Balogun is Berlin-born to a Nigerian father and German mother.

“I’d never been to Africa before because the relationships in my father’s family are not too strong. It’s like that sometimes. It’s either one big happy family or you have some fights. My father tried to keep me out of that. I have some cousins in London. That’s about it,” he tells FORBES AFRICA.

But now Balogun is integral to the Nigerian Super Eagles squad and heading to the World Cup in Russia as one of the backbones of the Nigerians’ quest to go further than they have been before, in any of their five previous appearances.

The 29-year-old has played all his career in Germany, debuting in the Bundesliga in 2009 at Hanover and going on to feature at Werder Bremen, Fortuna Düsseldorf, Darmstadt and now Mainz.

He was handpicked by the late Stephen Keshi to play for Nigeria but broke his foot in his first international, a friendly against Mexico, which was played in Atlanta in March 2014.