USMNT star Balogun reveals how he was inspired by Hale End products Akpom and Iwobi at Arsenal 

United States Men's National Team striker Folarin Balogun has revealed that the progress made by Alex Iwobi and Chuba Akpom inspired him to break into the Arsenal first team.

Iwobi and Akpom are products of Arsenal's Hale End Academy and  rose through the ranks before earning promotion to the first team. 

Balogun played with some incredible talented players such as Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe during his time at the Arsenal academy but the attacker stressed that Iwobi and Akpom becoming first team players made him believe it was possible to transition from Hale End to London Colney.

While Iwobi was on the books of Arsenal for fifteen years and played in 149 official matches before moving on to pastures new, his friend Akpom spent 16 years at the north London club, where he played twelve games for the first team.

It was not easy for Akpom to establish himself as a first team regular after his promotion and with first team opportunities hard to come by, he embarked on several loan spells before swapping Arsenal for PAOK in 2018.

Speaking to ESPN, Balogun said: "Before you mention them because I went there when I was about 10 so the kind of older boys for me were Chuba Akpom and Alex Iwobi.

"Going there as a young player was daunting, you didn't really think these guys were real and they were breaking into the first team and they are from the same area, like Chuba is from East London, that's where I'm from so it's nice to have them before you do it and of course you take inspiration.

"You want to be better than them so as time went on, obviously playing at a top level team people go out, people go in."

Balogun was eligible to play international football for Nigeria and England before pledging his international future to his country of birth, United States.
 

He shares the same agent as Super Eagles stars Alex Iwobi, Joe Aribo, Josh Maja and Ola Aina. 

Ifeanyi Emmanuel 

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