Former Golden Eaglets invitee, Philip Chidi Onyemah (Phenomenom) has taken the painful but inevitable option of returning to cash-strapped Olympiakos Nicosia of Cyprus, after failing to get a better option elsewhere in Europe.

Onyemah’s career has been on a slide since failing to gain promotion to the senior squad of FC Porto of Portugal in 2005, despite emerging top scorer for the side in the Portuguese junior league, and the 28-year-old attacker is now seeking another shot at a breakthrough in the Cypriot League.

The Delta State-born protégé of ex-international and former African Footballer of The Year, Emmanuel Amuneke’s defunct youth club, Soccer Warriors of Orile-Iganmu, Lagos has also starred for three other Portuguese lower division sides, Fornos De Algodres, FC Farmalicao and Rio Ave, but admits that favour has not been on his side.

“It’s true that I have not had he best of fortunes in terms of accelerating my career, but I am not complaining,” said the product of Pepsi Football Academy, Surulere, Lagos.

“I would have loved to ply my trade in Portugal once again, but the offers I got over there this summer were not just encouraging. I weighed the financial implications of everything that was available to me and I thought it would be better to face what I already new how to manager in Cyprus,” explained the lad, who also had earlier deals at Landskrona of Sweden and Timisoara of Romania fall flat some years back.

The Pepsi Academy Player of The Year 1996 and second runner-up in the first and only John Fashanu Grassroots Soccer Awards in 1998, who is married to a Portuguese wife (Katia) will now aim for a better run in the coming season, as he aims to consolidate is his current overall scorecard of 62 appearances and 17 goals for Olympiakos Nicosia, which he joined in 2010.

Sam O'Femi Fasetire