A shoulder injury kept Maduka Okoye out of the entire pre-season, but he needed just one match back to remind Udinese why he’s their number one.
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Udinese head coach Kosta Runjaic has praised Super Eagles goalkeeper Maduka Okoye after a commanding performance helped the club beat Padova 1-0 in the Coppa Italia, Complete Sports reports.
Okoye had missed the entirety of pre-season with a shoulder injury but was restored to the starting line-up by Runjaic for Sunday’s clash at the Bluenergy Stadium. Keinan Davis scored the only goal of the game in the 35th minute, and Okoye did the rest, keeping a clean sheet to send Udinese through to the next round.
“We Don’t Want To Get Too Excited”
Speaking to the club’s official website afterward, Runjaic acknowledged it was Okoye’s first game back from injury and praised the clean sheet, while cautioning against reading too much into one result with the team’s focus already turning to their upcoming league opener against Como.
A Reunion With Adams Awaits
The win sets up an all-Nigerian round of 16 tie for Udinese, who will face Venezia, and by extension Super Eagles striker Akor Adams, who marked his own Venezia debut with a brace in a 3-2 win over Modena on the same night.
Okoye enters the new season fresh off being named Udinese’s Player of the Season for 2025/26, a campaign in which he recorded 10 clean sheets in 29 league appearances despite missing the opening two months after a club suspension tied to a match fixing investigation. He returned to reclaim the number one shirt and delivered standout displays against Juventus and AC Milan on his way to also being shortlisted for Serie A’s Player of the Month award in May.
📌 Did You Know?
- Okoye was born in Düsseldorf, Germany, to a Nigerian father and German mother, and chose to represent Nigeria over Germany at international level.
- He is a cousin of Nigerian music duo P-Square, with his father the brother of Peter and Paul Okoye’s father.
- Okoye began his career as a striker before switching to goalkeeper, a switch that clearly paid off given his current standing as one of Serie A’s most reliable shot-stoppers.
- He won Sparta Rotterdam’s Player of the Season award in back to back years before a difficult spell at Watford, where he made just two appearances.
- Standing at 1.98m, Okoye is among the tallest goalkeepers in Serie A, a physical presence that has become part of his game.
- He helped Udinese survive relegation on the final day of the 2023/24 season with a crucial win away at Frosinone.
- Beyond football, Okoye has drawn attention for his fashion sense, including a widely discussed appearance at Paris Fashion Week.
