Paul Onuachu Biography
Paul Onuachu Ebere MON listen is a Nigerian professional footballer who was born on May 28, 1994. He is a striker for Southampton in the Premier League and the Nigeria national team. Onuachu has won League titles in both Denmark and Belgium.
In Belgium, he was named Belgian Footballer of the Year and won the Golden Bull trophy for getting the most goals.
Paul Onuachu Club Career with Midtjylland
In 2012, Onuachu went to Denmark to play for FC Midtjylland on a scholarship from Ebedei, their team in Nigeria.
He scored a lot of goals for their young team. Later that year, he played his first game with the first team in the Cup. In December 2012, he played his first game in the league.
The club gave him a new three-year deal in June 2013, and in August 2015, they added another three years to it. He went on loan to Vejle BK in early 2015 and then came back to FC Midtjylland before the 2015–16 season. Onuachu helped Midtjylland win the Danish Superliga twice, in 2015 and 2018.
He also scored the game-winning goal against Manchester United in the first leg of Midtjylland’s last-32 UEFA Europa League match in 2015. However, United’s debutant Marcus Rashford scored two goals in the second leg a week later at Old Trafford, which gave United a 5–1 win on the night and a 6–3 overall win.
Career with Genk
In August 2019, he signed with Genk, who were the Belgian Pro League champions at the time and had just hired Felice Mazzù as their boss.
People thought that Onuachu was “atypical” because he was 2.01 meters tall. Onauchu’s first game was on September 1, 2019, when he came on as a late replacement in stoppage time of a 1–1 draw against Club Brugge. He would score in his next two league games, starting in both a 1–2 loss to Sporting Charleroi and a 3–1 win over Oostende.
Onuachu had a great second full season at Genk. He scored 33 goals in the league and 35 goals in all competitions, which earned him the Golden Bull as the top scorer in the Belgian Pro League and made him Pro League Player of the Year for 2020–21 and the 2021 Belgian Golden Shoe winner for the best footballer of the year.
He also won the Ebony Shoe for being the best African player in Belgium in 2020–21. Onuachu scored against all 17 teams in the league and in four of the six Champions Play-Off games. He helped Genk finish second in the 2020–21 Belgian First Division A and beat Standard Liege 2–1 in the 2021 Belgian Cup Final.
His 33 goals were the most in the Belgian top flight since Erwin Vandenbergh’s 39-goal season for Lierse in 1980, which won him the European Golden Boot. They also beat Wesley Sonck’s record of 30 goals scored in one season for Genk in 2002–03.
Genk’s league form dropped the next year because their defense was weak at the start of the season. This happened after Cup-winning coach John van den Brom was fired in the middle of the season and replaced by Bernd Storck.
READ ALSO: Terem Moffi Biography: Age, Football Career & Stats
Genk made it to the European play-offs, but they came in sixth overall, behind Gent in the table. With 21 goals, Onuachu was third in the league for 2021–22. Deniz Undav of Union St-Gilloise scored 26 goals, and Michael Frey of Royal Antwerp scored 24.
Onuachu scored four goals against Sporting Charleroi on November 4, 2022. He was the first Genk player since Sonck in 2003 to do so. As of the end of January 2023, Onuachu had scored 16 league goals for Genk.
Racing were ten points ahead of Union St-Gilloise at the top of the Belgian Pro League. Onuachu had been upset about not being able to get a move to one of the five richest European leagues, but at the beginning of January 2023, he said he was motivated to help Genk stay on top and win the title.
Onuachu scored twice in his last game for Genk, a 4–0 win over Seraing, which put him back at the top of the Pro League scoring charts. Finally, a big offer came in for the Nigerian scorer from a club in a major league.
Southampton
Onuachu signed a three-and-a-half-year deal with relegation-threatened Premier League club Southampton on February 1, 2023, instead of title-chasing Genk.
Onuachu played his first Premier League game for Southampton on February 4, 2023, in a 3–0 loss to Brentford. He came on as a halftime substitute for Mohamed Elyounoussi.
He moved to Trabzonspor on loan for the season on September 11, 2023. On his first game for the team, on September 17, 2023, they beat Beşiktaş 3–0. He scored the goal.
Paul Onuachu International Career
Editor’s note: In February 2015, Onuachu was called up to the Nigeria under-23 national team. He was called up to the Nigerian senior team for the first time in March 2019. Nigeria’s first goal came in a friendly match against Egypt on March 26, 2019.
The goal was the fastest ever scored for Nigeria. It was scored in the first ten seconds of the game. At the end of the game, Onuachu was called the “toast of Nigerian football” by “his coach, teammates, journalists, and fans.” He was picked to play for Nigeria in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations. He played in Nigeria’s 1-0 win over Burundi, which helped the Super Eagles make it to the semifinals.
They lost to Algeria 2–1 in the last four, but then beat Tunisia 1-0 in the bronze medal game. Taking Umar Sadiq’s place on the Nigerian team for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast, he was called up on January 12, 2024.