Paul Onuachu’s 21st Super Lig goal of the 2025/26 season helped Trabzonspor edge Rizespor 1-0 on Saturday, while the Super Eagles striker simultaneously broke a Trabzonspor record that had stood since 2011.
Paul Onuachu keeps writing his name into Trabzonspor history. The Super Eagles striker scored the only goal in a tightly contested 1-0 win over Rizespor on Saturday in the Turkish Süper Lig, registering his 21st league goal of the 2025/26 season in just 23 appearances. He’s not just scoring goals, he’s reshaping records.
The strike came six minutes into the second half. A cutback from Ukrainian winger Oleksandr Zubkov found Onuachu in space inside the box, and the 31-year-old calmly slotted home from close range. It looked simple. It never is. The composure of a striker in form, finding the right position at the right moment, is what separates the clinical from the ordinary.
But it was what the goal represented, beyond the three points, that made it special. Onuachu has now scored in eight consecutive Super Lig matches, making him the first Trabzonspor player to achieve that feat since the legendary Burak Yilmaz did it in the 2011/12 season. The record had stood for 14 years. It doesn’t stand anymore.
Tributes Amid the Goals
After scoring, Onuachu didn’t celebrate in the usual way. He lifted the jersey of Trabzonspor assistant coach Orhan Kaynak, who passed away earlier in the week, displaying it to supporters inside the stadium. It was a moment that revealed the character of the man. He’s in the form of his life, and he used it to honour a colleague the club had just lost.
Goalkeeper Andre Onana also played a key role in the result, producing two crucial saves in the dying minutes to preserve the clean sheet. He denied Frantzdy Pierrot in the 87th minute and made another important stop moments later. Trabzonspor had to work hard for this one.
Where Trabzonspor Stand in the Title Race
The result keeps Trabzonspor firmly in contention at the top of the Süper Lig. With the win, they move to 57 points after 26 matches, level with Fenerbahçe in second place. They’re seven points behind table-topping Galatasaray, who beat Basaksehir 3-0 on the same day. It’s a gap, but with games in hand and a striker in this kind of form, nobody should rule them out.
Across all competitions this season, Onuachu now has 23 goals and two assists in 26 appearances. The title race in the Süper Lig is shaping up to be fascinating, and those tight match outcomes are exactly the kind of situation where the Bet9ja YOHAIG code becomes useful, offering up to ₦100,000 in bonuses for building accumulators around European league action.
What This Season Means for Nigeria
Let’s give this the context it deserves. Onuachu was written off after a disappointing Premier League stint at Southampton in 2023, where he struggled in a relegated side. Many assumed his best days were behind him. He proved them all wrong when he returned to Trabzonspor on loan in 2023/24, scoring 15 league goals. Then Trabzonspor made it permanent in June 2025, and he’s repaid every naira of that investment.
He’s now the first Nigerian player to lead the Turkish Super Lig Golden Boot race at this stage of a season. As a Super Eagles striker heading into an important international window, this form couldn’t come at a better time for both him and Nigeria’s coaching staff. When Onuachu is this sharp, he’s one of the most difficult strikers in Europe to stop.
As reported by FootballInNigeria.com.ng, Onuachu’s target now turns to Trabzonspor’s all-time single-season scoring record, currently held by Georgian legend Shota Arveladze with 25 goals from the 1995/96 season. With several matches remaining, the Nigerian needs four more goals to surpass it. That’s very much within reach.
📌 Did You Know?
- Onuachu’s best-ever season remains his 2020/21 campaign with KRC Genk in Belgium, where he scored a staggering 33 league goals in 38 appearances, becoming the first player in the Belgian top flight to cross the 30-goal mark in the 21st century.
- He won the Belgian Golden Shoe and the Ebony Shoe (for the best African player in the Belgian league) in that same 2020/21 season, two of the most prestigious individual awards in Belgian football.
- Trabzonspor’s all-time single-season Süper Lig scoring record is held by Georgian legend Shota Arveladze with 25 goals in 1995/96. Onuachu, with 21 goals and several games remaining, is four goals away from erasing that mark.
- The last player before Onuachu to score in eight consecutive league matches for Trabzonspor was actually Hami Mandiralı in the 1991/92 season, making the record even older than Burak Yilmaz’s 2011 streak that Onuachu was initially targeting.
- Onuachu stands at 2.01 metres tall, making him one of the tallest active strikers in European professional football. He has scored seven headed goals in the 2025/26 Süper Lig season alone.
- During his first Trabzonspor loan spell in 2023/24, Onuachu scored on his debut in a 3-0 win over Besiktas and finished that campaign with 15 league goals in 25 appearances, including a memorable hat-trick against Gaziantep FK.
- Onuachu has only 31 international caps for Nigeria with 4 goals, a surprisingly modest record given his club form, suggesting the Super Eagles have often overlooked him despite his consistency at club level.
