Omobolaji Habeeb Adekanye known as Bobby was born in Ibadan, Nigeria, on February 14, 1999. He is Dutch.
He grew up in the prestigious Ajax Amsterdam youth sector. At 12 years of age he went to the Barcelona youth set up and stayed three years. At 15 he returned to Holland and joined PSV Eindhoven for a year and then spent four years at Liverpool.
At 20 he was considered ready to move up from youth level football and in the summer of 2019 he joined Lazio. He made his debut in September in a Europa League defeat at CFR Cluj. His Serie A debut came a week later when he entered the field in the last minutes of a 4-0 home victory over Genoa. The first game he started was again against Cluj, this time in a 1-0 win. His first goal for Lazio was on February 2 2020 in a 5-1 home thumping of SPAL.
Lazio were flying at this stage and looked favourites for the Scudetto. Alas Covid 19, lockdown and a four months pause threw them off track and the relentless number of games at the re-start in the summer saw them finish 4th. They did however qualify for the Champions League after a thirteen-year absence. Adekanye made 11 league appearances with 1 goal, 1 appearance in Coppa Italia and 3 in the Europa League, under manager Simone Inzaghi. Lazio also won the Supercoppa in Riyadh beating Juventus 3-1.
In October 2020 he was loaned to Cadiz in La Liga. He played 3 league games and 2 in the Copa del Rey for the "Submarino Amarillo" (The Yellow Submarine).
In January 2021 the Spaniards let him go and he went back to Holland on loan joining ADO Den Haag. With the "Ooievar" (The Stork) he played 14 league games with 2 goals (PSV, PEC Zwolle). The team from The Hague was relegated in last place.
Adekanye then came back to Italy and Lazio but never played and in January joined Crotone in Serie B on loan. In Calabria he only played 4 league games and the "Squali" (The Sharks) were relegated to Serie C.
In the summer of 2022 he definitely left Lazio and joined the Go Ahead Eagles from Deventer, in his home country of Holland. He played 17 league games with 5 goals and 1 game in the Dutch Cup. The "Trots aan de IJssel" (The Pride of IJssel) finished 11th in the Eredivisie.
Adekanye has represented Holland at U16 level (8 games), Under 17's (3 games and 1 goal) and Under 20's (1 game).
Adekanye is a left footed attacking winger. He is 1.70 metres and extremely fast and with good dribbling skills.
At Lazio he arrived young and the fact that he came from Liverpool maybe raised people’s hopes a bit too much. It was not easy to break into the first team but he did get 11 games and has an Italian Supercoppa to his name. If it were not for Covid 19 he may even have become Italian champion but alas we will never know.
Lazio Career
Season | Total appearances (goals) | Serie A | Coppa Italia | Europa League |
2019-20 | 15 (1) | 11 (1) | 1 | 3 |
Sources
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