Nineteen-year-old youngster on Sparta’s Champions League roster

Adam Hložek, Adam Karabec, Martin Vitík, a lot of young players have been making their way into Sparta’s A-team in recent years. Now it seems that another “greenhorn” has won the favour of coach Pavel Vrba.

Nelson Okeke is on the roster for the Champions League. He was in Sparta three years ago on trials, even played in a few junior matches.

He headed to Sparta permanently in November 2020, but hasn’t played many games since then, as the third league (where Sparta’s B-team played) hasn’t been played due to coronavirus measures.

However, he has already enjoyed the summer preparation to the fullest and in friendly matches he was one of the best, at least according to Spartan fanatics. He stopped the opponent’s chances in the midfield and created several of them himself.

This is probably why he was nominated for the Champions League preliminary rounds. Although the road to the starting line-up is very thorny (Ladislav Krejci Jr, David Pavelka or Michal Sacek play in his position), there is a possibility that he will get a chance if one of the players gets injured, like Abdallah Sima did last year in Slavia.

Another plus is the fact that Sparta’s B-team was promoted to the second league and Okeke will play against teams like Dukla Praha, Příbram or Zbrojovka Brno. They have players with first league experience and the Nigerian talent can gain experience against them.

Source: UEFA