Nigeria goalkeeper Maduka Okoye asserts that rising through the ranks of the Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Monchengladbach academies, which produced Bernd Leno and Marc-Andre ter Stegen, has been instrumental in his growth.
The aforementioned duo started out their careers at the German clubs, and are presently on the books of Arsenal and Barcelona.
Okoye was born in Dusseldorf – a town in the region of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Leverkusen and Monchengladbach are located, to a Nigerian father and German mother.
The 20-year-old pledged his allegiance to play for the Super Eagles and received his first cap in the 1-1 draw with five-time world champions Brazil in Singapore last October.