Daniel Ola

Daniel Ola was born in Accra, Ghana, on November 23 1982.

Source Lazio Wiki

He started his football career with King Faisal's Babies in Nigeria and in 1999 he moved to Switzerland to play for Etoile Carouge. Here he was noticed by Lazio scout Sergio Vatta who first tested him in the Viareggio Tournament and then signed him in the summer of 2000 to play for the Primavera. That year he won the U19 scudetto and had a moment of notoriety on May 6 2001 when, following incidents of racism, he was called up to the first team and put on the bench for the Lazio Bari game. In the summer of 2001 he did the pre-season training with the first team, played a few friendlies, appeared on the bench in the first Serie A fixture, but was then loaned first to Chievo in Serie A (one appearance) and then to L’Aquila in Serie C1 where he played a season and a half with 47 appearances and 3 goals.

After a brief loan he made a permanent move to Teramo in C1 in 2003 where he played 50 games and scored 7 goals in two seasons. He then signed for Cesena in Serie B in 2005 and played three seasons there. In the first, the team reached the playoff semi-finals and in the third they were relegated. He made 71 appearances with one goal.

He then played for many teams: Botev Plovdiv in Bulgaria, Persebaya Surabaya in Indonesia, Jurmala and Daugava in Latvia (with the latter winning a league title, national cup and Super Cup). He was even called up by the Nigerian national team in 2008, but did not play. Back in Italy in 2014 he appeared for Fidelis Andria, Bisceglie, Barletta, AZ Picerno and Manfredonia. His final years of active football were with Buccino and Ginosa in the minor tiers.

Ola was a promising central defender, but not quite Serie A material.

Source

Wikipedia