It was one of those forgettable games on Sunday for Maduka Okoye and his Sparta Rotterdam teammates, they lost 4-0 to Utrecht on the opening day of the Dutch Jupiler League.
Okoye, who recently signed a new contract with the club, extending his stay at Het Kasteel until 2025, assumed his role as first choice goalkeeper.
However, the 21 year-old faced a baptism of an awful sort and was saved by the bell, in a manner of speaking.
An early goal inside the opening two minutes of the game opened the floodgates.
Adam Maher breached Okoye’s goal, before Mark van der Maarel added a second to make it 2-0.
Anastasios Douvikas made it 3-0 and Simon Gustafson sealed the dominant home display with the fourth goal in the second minute of additional time.
In spite of the torrid outcome, the Nigeria international who was the busier of both goalkeepers made more saves, had more touches and had more passes, building from the back against an opponent so ruthless in the final third.
According to the club’s match report, Utrecht are a bogey team and the last time Sparta Rotterdam won at the Stadion Galgenwaard was in 1997.
The report in part:
Galgenwaard Stadium is always a difficult hurdle for Sparta Rotterdam. Some Spartans can’t even remember the last victory in Utrecht. In 1997 Arjan van der Laan was the only goalscorer of the match and that was the last time that Sparta took three points to Spangen.
Henk Fraser’s Men will need to dust themselves up and have a go at it again when Heracles come calling on Saturday.
