How I was led to play for the Super Eagles by a witch says Balogun

Super Eagles defender Leon Balogun has opened up on an encounter with a witch who put him on the path to reconnect with Nigeria and play for the national team. Born to a Nigerian father and a German mother, Leon Balogun was born and brought up in Germany with little knowledge about Nigeria.

The new Brighton signing from Mainz 05, in an interview opened up how he made the journey to reconnect to Nigeria. The 29-year-old told the story of how his sister led him to see a witch who diagnosed a hole in his aura and how he was still hurting from the death of a loved one. The loved one turned out to be his grandmother from Nigeria, whom he never met before she died. “I was amazed. I hadn’t thought about my grandma that much since she passed when I was 16 years old,” the Brighton & Hove Albion defender wrote on his piece for The Players’ Tribune.

“I was amazed. I hadn’t thought about my grandma that much since she passed when I was 16 years old. But, this lady was right. My grandma’s death had a huge effect on me, and I had never even met my grandma, who lived in Nigeria. That’s the part that was wild to me. This woman, though, she saw it. She told me I had to heal my soul, my heart before I could become the player I wanted to be.

“After we left, I didn’t completely understand if my experience with her was successful. The most important thing that came out of that day was that it got me thinking about my grandma. When I got home, my mind went straight back to the day my dad told me the news. Because I had never met her, my dad didn’t tell me right when it happened. He actually waited a few days — that’s how distant my relationship was from her. She only spoke Yoruba. So when we talked on the phone when I was little, my dad would try to translate for us. He had never taken me to Nigeria, for reasons he didn’t make clear to me, and I only ever saw photos of my grandma.” said the Nigeria international who’s currently at the World Cup in Russia with the Super Eagles.