Simy Nwankwo: Takes ‘Crusade’ to Parma

In their quest to return to top flight, Parma has gone for the signature of Nigeria’s all-time top scorer in Serie A- Simy Nwankwo hoping that the Super Eagles striker can repeat his 2019/2020 feat where his 20 league goals helped Crotone gain promotion to the top-flight

Parma last week completed the signing of Simy Nwankwo from Salernitana on a six-month loan deal with an option to buy.

The Crusaders are currently languishing in the bottom half of the Serie B table, but they have added more firepower to their attack as they attempt to improve on their position.
The Italian club announced the deal on their social media pages and website as they try to make a late push for promotion to the Italian top-flight.

Parma are getting a player with enough Italian football experience in Simy. The Super Eagles striker scored 20 league goals in the 2019/2020 Serie B season, which helped Crotone gain promotion to the top-flight.

Simy repeated the trick in Serie A last season to become Nigeria’s all-time top scorer in Italy’s top division. But his goals could not save Crotone from relegation, who then loaned out the Nigerian to the newly-promoted Salernitana.

However, Simy has not been able to replicate the same form for the Garnets, with just one goal in 19 league appearances this season.

Interestingly, it was against Parma last season that Nwankwo took his goal tally to 19 – the highest that any Nigerian has ever achieved in any of the top five European leagues – La Liga, Bundesliga, EPL, Serie A, and Ligue 1.

In doing so, the 29-year-old became the Nigerian to have scored the most goals in a single campaign in Europe’s top five leagues, overtaking Yakubu Aiyegbeni’s previous record of 17.
Simy also eclipsed former Inter Milan star Obafemi Martins as the highest scoring Nigerian in the Serie A.

Martins scored 28 times in 88 matches for Inter Milan, but Simy ended with 30 goals, all in the colours of Crotone.
His 19 goals put him third on the goal scorers’ chart with only Cristiano Ronaldo 25, and Romelu Lukaku 21, ahead of the 29-year-old Nigerian forward.

Nwankwo scored 20 goals for Crotone in Serie B last season to help the team gain promotion. Before then, he had scored just 10 goals in his prior two seasons in Serie A with Crotone, in the 2016/17 and 2017/18 seasons, in which he played 44 matches. But Nwankwo’s goals last season have not helped Crotone at all as they were relegated.

Asked when was the first time he kicked a football, Simy said: “I was little, I was maybe four years old. I started playing at home, outside, everywhere. Every time. I always wanted the ball between my feet. My father said I was sick from this game. It didn’t take much to give birth to my passion, or rather obsession, for football.”

The gangling striker was a member of the Super Eagles team to the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia though he saw only three minutes of action throughout the three group stage matches. He won the first of his four caps for Nigeria against DR Congo in 2018 but he has not played for Nigeria since August 2018.

Last summer Tottenham Hotspur expressed their interest in Nwankwo and some in North London may have feared that history was about to repeat itself.
When it comes to signing strikers, Spurs’ track record doesn’t make for particularly comfortable reading.

Simy would have arrived after the season of his life in which scored a remarkable 20 Serie A goals for a Crotone side who finished 19th, a whopping 14 points adrift of safety.
The 6ft 6ins Nigeria international even outscored Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Lorenzo Insigne and Lautaro Martinez. Dusan Vlahovic, arguably the most coveted striker in world football, netted just one more than the Crotone talisman in 2020/21.

History is littered with players who shone in their breakthrough top-flight season before failing to reach those heights again.

Simy had only ever scored 10 Serie A goals before 2020/21 begun. His most impressive displays, meanwhile, came at second-tier level, in Italy and Portugal.
Newly-promoted Salernitana jumped at the chance to bring Simy to the Stadio Arechi once Tottenham’s apparent interest died down. But if Salernitana thought the late-blooming 29-year-old could replicate his Crotone displays they were very much mistaken.
One goal in 19 games tells it’s own story.

And, on the final day of the January transfer window, Simy was farmed out on loan to Serie B outfit Parma.
“He didn’t have the right approach. It’s as if he wasn’t eating at our table. We are disappointed,” says former Salernitana CEO Ugo Marchetti.

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It looks highly unlikely that Simy will be back on Spurs’ radar any time soon.