Paul Onuachu has 22 league goals for Trabzonspor this season, yet just four in 34 Super Eagles appearances. Olympic gold medallist Garba Lawal has a clear explanation for the gap.
Paul Onuachu is the leading African scorer across Europe’s top leagues this season. Twenty-two goals in 25 Turkish Super Lig games, a tally that has him just three strikes away from matching the record for the most prolific foreign player in Trabzonspor’s history. Yet put on a Nigeria jersey, and the 31-year-old striker has managed only four goals across 34 appearances. Former Super Eagles star Garba Lawal has explained why the gap exists, in comments reported by FootballInNigeria.com.ng.
Lawal, who won the 1996 Olympic gold alongside Bonfrere’s squad and earned 55 caps for Nigeria, spoke to Footy Africa about the challenge of replicating club form at international level. His diagnosis focuses on time, tactical fit, and the unforgiving nature of the national team environment. Super Eagles fans looking to back Onuachu and company as qualifying for 2030 begins can activate the YOHAIG welcome offer ahead of Nigeria’s next round of fixtures.
The Club-vs-Country Divide Is Not New
Lawal drew directly on his own era to frame the problem. Jonathan Akpoborie was one of the most feared strikers in German football during the late 1990s, winning the DFB-Pokal with Wolfsburg and scoring freely in the Bundesliga. In a Super Eagles jersey, the goals dried up almost completely. The pattern Lawal describes has repeated itself with enough Nigerian strikers to qualify as a structural problem rather than a personal failing.
At Trabzonspor, Onuachu’s role is built around his specific strengths. At 6ft 7in, he is the tallest active striker in European football’s top five leagues, and the team’s attacking structure funnels crosses, second balls, and set pieces through him constantly. His hold-up play and aerial dominance are not supporting features of Trabzonspor’s attack; they are the engine of it. The 31-year-old’s form this season has also come off the back of 10 goals in 11 consecutive matches across all competitions, the kind of extended run that builds a rhythm impossible to manufacture in two or three national team training sessions.
Limited Time Is the Core Problem, Lawal Says
“At club level, you have the luxury of time and consistent minutes to find your rhythm. With the national team, you don’t have time to gel; you might only get two or three sessions before a match. If you don’t produce instantly, you risk being dropped,” Lawal told Footy Africa. The comment applies with particular force to a striker of Onuachu’s type. A target man’s effectiveness depends heavily on how well teammates understand his movement patterns and when to deliver the ball. In a club setting, those patterns are drilled over months. In a national team camp, they often have to be learned in days.
The numbers reinforce Lawal’s point. Onuachu scored just four goals in his first 30-plus appearances for Nigeria, many of them as a substitute or in a system that prioritised mobile forwards over a focal-point centre-forward. He did score against Uganda at the 2025 AFCON, a game in which he was finally given a starting role in a setup that allowed him to play to his strengths. The response was immediate. Fans who want to follow his progress in Nigeria’s upcoming qualifiers can also take advantage of the the YOHAIG promo code to get started with Bet9ja’s welcome bonus before the next round of fixtures.
What the Super Eagles Need to Unlock Onuachu
Lawal’s conclusion is not that Onuachu should be dropped or moved on. He believes the striker remains an important player for Nigeria and that coach Eric Chelle is monitoring his form closely. The challenge is building a system that uses the same qualities Trabzonspor have spent nearly two full seasons developing. That means consistent starting berths, a clear attacking identity, and the kind of crossing and set-piece service that turns his aerial ability into goals.
With 189 career club goals across six clubs and still only four for the national team, the contrast is sharp enough to demand a structural solution rather than the continued assumption that Onuachu simply does not perform on the biggest stage. He has reached a stage of his career where the questions need answers from the coaching setup, not just from the player himself. New bettors looking to back Nigeria’s strikers in upcoming qualifying matches can claim Bet9ja’s YOHAIG code before kick-off.
📌 Did You Know?
- Paul Onuachu’s 22 Turkish Super Lig goals this season make him the leading African scorer across all of Europe’s major leagues in the 2025/26 campaign.
- The Trabzonspor single-season record for most goals by a foreign player stands at 25, set by Shota Arveladze. Onuachu needs three more goals to match it with six rounds remaining.
- Garba Lawal was part of the Nigeria squad that won the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations in Tunisia, where the Super Eagles beat Zambia 2-1 in the final.
- Jonathan Akpoborie, Lawal’s reference point for club-vs-country strikers, scored 79 Bundesliga goals across his career but only six for the Super Eagles in 17 appearances.
- Onuachu joined Trabzonspor on loan from Southampton in January 2024 before making the deal permanent. His stint in the Premier League produced just two league goals.
- Trabzonspor’s 2-1 win over Galatasaray earlier this month, in which Onuachu scored, was their first victory at Papara Park in eight years.
- Onuachu’s four Super Eagles goals have come across six different calendar years, underlining how infrequently he has been given sustained starting chances in the national team system.
