The long and winding road that led Sunday Stephen Obayan to Real Salt Lake is one filled with roadblocks and dead end streets.
But when he tells the stories of leaving home in Lagos, Nigeria, at just 15 years old with the dream of playing in Europe only to have those dreams crushed by the false promises of a shady agent, then earning a spot on Spain’s U-20 World Cup team and later earning an invitation to play for his home country’s national team, he does so with a smile. Those rigors have made grateful for every opportunity that’s fallen before him, no matter what the eventual outcome.
“In the initial stage, it was very tough for me. I was stranded. It was tough. It was very, very tough,” Sunny said this week in RSL’s training camp in Tucson, Arizona. “In the end, people see that I am fortunate. But I’m just very hard-working and had in my mind that I was going to make it in football.”
His journey now sees him in training with Real Salt Lake in Tucson, Arizona, preparing for the CONCACAF Champions League Quarterfinal meeting with Tigres from Mexico and his first season in Major League Soccer. After meeting his new teammates and going through his first full day of training, he talked at length about the path that led him to the Claret-and-Cobalt.
It all starts with a starry-eyed young soccer player, just 15 years old, dreaming of playing with the world’s best players in Europe. In the Nigerian city of Lagos, Sunday Stephen Obayan – who has gone by Sunny for as long as he can remember – was wooed by an agent with promises of delivering on that aspiration. However, like many before him and many since, he arrived in France after paying the agent to help place him with a team and never heard from him again.
Relying on the kindness of some friends who had moved to Madrid, Spain, Sunny caught the eye of Polideportivo Ejido while playing in a localized version of the World Cup (Mundialito) made up of immigrants of all nationalities in Madrid. By 2005, he earned his first professional contract and was soon signed by Spanish giants Valencia.
Overcoming such great odds, Sunny was also called in to Spain’s U-19 camp and then was invited with the U-20s to the U-20 World Cup in Canada. There, he played alongside the likes of Gerard Pique and Juan Mata as Spain earned a fifth-place finish.
All of that attention at the youth level also garnered Sunny some plaudits with the Nigerian National Team. Berti Vogts first started talking with him about switching allegiances in 2008 and he finally made his debut with the Super Eagles in an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier in 2010. While he would keep in contact with the national team coaches, he has not received another invitation to join Nigeria since, but hopes that his play with RSL can rekindle some of that international momentum that first got him on the national team’s radar.
“Ever since then, I was actually waiting for another opportunity to be granted to me so I could play more with the Nigerian National Team,” he said. “First things first, I just need to get with the team and help as much as I can. We just have to take it a step at a time. We don’t need to rush.”
Meanwhile, on the club level, Sunny was a key contributor off the bench for Valencia in his first season as Mata and David Villa led the team to a tenth-place finish in La Liga. However, the then-20 year old would see loans to Osasuna, Real Betis and Numancia before a full transfer to Numancia in 2011. Seeking the playing opportunity that could get him back into the national team, he went to Bnei Sakhnin in Israel, CSKA Sofia in Bulgaria and Alanyaspor in Turkey before landing with Real Salt Lake.
Now, working in a midfield with Kyle Beckerman and Javier Morales, he has the opportunity to get back into the limelight while taking another turn in his circuitous professional career. After the first day, Head Coach Jeff Cassar was already impressed with his efforts.
“I think he’s a good player. He’s smart, he’s technical, he has a good range of passing,” he said. “It’s been a couple of months since he’s been playing so we just have to get him introduced on how we play, but he’s fitting in really good.”
Sunny and RSL will face the Portland Timbers in the first preseason match of the trip to Arizona on Thursday, giving the 27-year-old midfielder the first opportunity to play in the Claret-and-Cobalt. Kickoff is scheduled for 11:30 am MT with a live stream on RSL.com.
