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Throwback is a series that looks back on a major event in sporting history. This week's edition focuses on former Nigeria international Obafemi Martins' 2002/03 season, his first in senior club football
Inter’s 2-0 win against Benfica in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarter-final on Tuesday has handed them the advantage in that tie. If the Nerazzurri finish the job next week at San Siro, it would set up an all-Italian meeting in the last four with either Napoli or AC Milan.
The last time there were two Italian teams in the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League was 20 years ago, when a certain Nigerian wonderkid was making everyone sit up and take notice. This is the story of Obafemi Martins’ breakout season.
Surrounded by giants
After joining Inter from Reggiana, Obafemi Martins’ first year at the club was mostly spent in the Primavera. This was to be expected: Hector Cuper could call upon a star-studded attack, with the likes of Ronaldo, Christian Vieri, Alvaro Recoba and Mohamed Kallon. In amidst all of that, there was scant chance for a fledgling 17-year-old, and so Martins busied himself helping the club’s under-18 side claim victory in the Torneo Viareggio, alongside the likes of Goran Pandev and Giovanni Pasquale.
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However, the following campaign, 2002/23, was one of flux in attack for the senior side. The departure of Ronaldo to Real Madrid set in motion a series of dominos. Hernan Crespo arrived from Lazio as a replacement, but then suffered a thigh injury that kept him out for four months and restricted him to 18 league appearances. Gabriel Batistuta, Crespo’s international rival, was signed as a response to his injury but barely played himself due to a combination of injuries and being cup-tied in Europe.
Vieri, despite going on to have his best season at the club, was hurt by the sale of the Brazilian – “I went to Inter for Ronaldo,” he said – and disillusioned by Cuper’s role in the transfer. Kallon, who was a much-touted prospect, got injured at the start of the campaign and missed portions of it as a consequence.
Amidst all of this, Martins’ record in youth football convinced Cuper he was set for a run in the first team. The player himself needed a lot of persuasion. “Hector Cuper supported me and told me I was better than some players in the first team, but I didn’t believe it,” Martins said of his promotion to the senior squad. “I was scared. I didn’t think I could handle it. There were a lot of big, big players there at the time.”
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He was named in a Serie A matchday squad for the first time against Piacenza in early October, but would only make his debut in December, deputising for Crespo from the start in 2-1 win over Parma at Ennio Tardini. He impressed enough to make four more squad lists, but Martins would not make another appearance until the end of April, coming on for Alvaro Recoba with a quarter of an hour remaining against Lazio.
Time and chance
That 1-1 draw not only began a damaging run of four draws in five matches, but seemed to make Cuper’s mind up with respect to the utility of Recoba: the Uruguay international, mercurial even at the best of times, was proving more worrying in his tendency to drift in and out of matches, as well as in his lack of work ethic. He would only start once more until the end of the campaign.
Martins, by contrast, was going from strength to strength. As a result of Gabriel Batistuta’s inability to play for Inter In the Champions League, as well as injuries and suspensions to Kallon, Recoba and Vieri, he was actually making a lot more headway in Europe. He had made a nerves-ridden half-hour cameo against Barcelona at San Siro, and then played 45 minutes against Newcastle – with whom he would go on to sign – two weeks after. While still clearly raw and occasionally ungainly in his movements, there were already glimpses of his explosive stride and power in the lower body.
In that latter match, he did not score, but he did play a crucial role for both Inter’s goals: for the first, flicking a pass into Vieri and then intervening to rob Titus Bramble, before feeding it out wide for Sergio Conceicao to cross for ‘Bobo’; for the second, winning the free-kick that led to the second equaliser.
Having had such a demonstrable impact against top-level, Cuper handed him his first Champions League start eight days later against Bayer Leverkusen. This was a high-stakes match – Inter needed to win in order to seal progress to the last eight – and Martins duly repaid his manager’s faith, winning a penalty and then opening the scoring after a mix-up in the hosts’ defence allowed Conceicao to spring him in behind. “Martins is a little star who can only get better," said Cuper afterward. “He was simply fantastic tonight. I couldn’t have asked more from him.
“I have a lot of faith in him. He is still a kid and he needs to do a lot of work, but he is not just a player for the future. Having been pushed into the side early he has taken a big step forward.”
‘Cautious’ Martins rejects Super Eagles
His efforts were not escaping notice back home in Nigeria. Super Eagles coach Christian Chukwu was, in the time-honoured tradition, ‘building a team’ in a quest to qualify and challenge for the 2004 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON). Martins’ appeal was obvious, even though there was no scarcity of options in attack for Nigeria.
Ahead of a qualifier against Malawi in March, the acrobatic teenager got his first call-up to the Nigeria senior national team. It was turned down, although even that generated some controversy, with Chukwu suggesting the decision to replace the refusenik with Chukwudi Nwogu was not his own.
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In any case, Martins demurred not just for Malawi, but for subsequent invitations: in May for the LG Cup, and then at the end of the year for the 2004 AFCON; he would not make his international bow for another year. With many questioning his commitment and patriotism, the forward addressed the criticism with surprising clarity and self-awareness. “I'm not ready to play for Nigeria now - it's too soon,” he said. “I'm still learning and want to develop further. I'm doing well for Inter right now, but I'm still miles away from being the finished product.
“As we speak, I've only played four league games with the senior side and four in the Champions League, most of them as a substitute. All I want now is to put my head down and settle in the Inter first team. I'll have time for international football later.
“I love my country, but I have to be cautious.”
Welcome to the big time, 'Oba Oba'
It was arguably the wrong way around a teenage striker making his bones in the Champions League and garnering international interest while being mostly uninvolved in league play. However, it was fitting for a forward whose entire shtick was his opportunism: he was seizing his chances as they came.
Nevertheless, the 18-year-old finally opened his league account for Inter on May 3 against Atalanta, running onto a lofted through ball by Domenico Morfeo to slide a finish past Alex Calderoni in a fashion that was now becoming trademark: folded inside the near post, low to the goalkeeper’s right.
That proved his penultimate start of the campaign, but Martins would get the chance to unfurl it – as well as a now iconic somersault celebration – once more in the Champions League, in perhaps his biggest contribution yet. Having drawn the first leg goalless and conceded in the first half of the second leg to city rivals AC Milan, Inter were faced with the prospect of elimination from the Champions League at the semi-final stage. With his side having much of the play but managing meagre penetration, Cuper turned to his ebullient no.30 in what was a symbolic, torch-passing moment, subbing Recoba off.
In what was an intriguing cameo, Martins put himself about against a centre-back pairing of Paolo Maldini and Alessandro Nesta, causing them problems with his speed, physicality and movement to offer between the lines. By contrast, strike partner Crespo, for all his nous, was muted and anaemic, and was duly substituted.
Inter’s efforts to wrest back control of the tie ultimately came up short, but any sense of jeopardy was solely down to Martins who, with six minutes to play, peeled off a discombobulated Maldini and finished past Christian Abbiati to bring the teams level. That built to a grandstand finish, but more importantly it launched the career of an 18-year-old whippet. After only 11 appearances in total in this, come the following season, Martins would make the fourth-most appearances of any Inter player and finish the campaign as the club’s third-highest scorer in all competitions.
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