KNOWN FOR HIS STRING OF ACROBATIC SOMERSAULTS, often resembling Faustino Aspilla’s, Victor Obinna found himself one day doing a different type of somersault – one which scarily involved him, his car, and a ditch. It was an accident which came close to killing him if it hadn’t been for a miracle. Ten years on, though, the Nigerian is around to tell the tale.
After trials with Juventus, Perugia and even Brazilian side Internacional, a young and naive teenager from the city of Jos in Nigeria arrived on the Italian peninsula back in 2005 ready to turn out in the famous yellow and blue strip of Chievo Verona. Despite what the club nickname suggested, the Flying Donkeys were far from airborne. Instead, that year they spent the majority of the season fighting relegation, with the last matchday of the season sentencing them to their dreaded fate.
One man who had started to win over the hearts of the Gialloblu faithful was Obinna, a striker who had scored six goals in 23 appearances in his debut season with the club. His charismatic celebrations coupled with his ability to take on defenders, drift wide to the left flank and fire goals from inside and outside the box left many fans impressed with his ability. Their admiration only grew when he opted to remain at Chievo the following season to help the club in their fight to return to the top flight.
It was the ultimate display of loyalty from Obinna, who warmly recalls the family atmosphere at the club and how the management and his teammates affectionately took in a young African living in a foreign land. “For me, it was the best time in my career. As a young player, it was the best moment in my career,” he happily tells These Football Times. “I was young and I was stupid. I used to see myself as if no-one could stop me.
“I saw a lot of platforms opening up for me, including the first time I played for the senior national team. I had a fantastic three years playing for that club. [They were] the best moments of my football career. As a young player playing in a foreign land where I had no family, they took me in and they made me one of theirs. I am still thankful to the president Luca Campedelli for all the things they did for me. It is pretty difficult for a young player, who comes from Africa, to adapt in such environment. I thank God for everything – that was a stepping-stone to conquering the next step in my career.”
That next step, which saw him form part of José Mourinho’s Inter side, almost never came, though, as tragedy almost struck one crisp autumn afternoon in October 2007. What should have been a normal day of training under head coach Giuseppe Iachini instead turned out to be one of the most haunting experiences for the Nigerian.
“How do I say, it’s an unforgettable memory I have within me. I was very young when it happened. I was 18.” Obinna’s warm demeanour changes ever so slightly and an eerie silence lingers. “I was new to driving and it happened barely three or four months after I had got my driver’s licence in Italy. I was comfortable and everything was going fine … I had an Audi A1 and as a young 18-year-old, you know what that means,” he recalls, as he lets out a slight giggle.
“I was driving like an old man. Easy. Without wanting to scratch the car or anything. Unfortunately, there are certain things that happen and you are there at the wrong time … I thank God that I survived that accident.” Obinna pauses and looks out of the window before recollecting his thoughts to say: “It was a terrible, terrible accident and a horrible feeling and situation, because I had never experienced that.”