Ademola Lookman summed it up quite neatly after collecting the trophy for best male footballer at the 2024 Confederation of African Football awards. “Four years ago my career felt down," the 27-year-old told the glitterati assembled at the Palais des Congrès in Marrakesh. "But now I’m here as the best player in Africa. Don’t let your failures stop your dreams."

An apt moment indeed in the Moroccan city to muse on the slings and arrows of footballing fortune.

In September 2020, just over 18 months after leaving the English Premier League team Everton for a five-year contract with the German outfit RB Leipzig, Lookman was back in England's top flight playing on loan for Fulham.

In August 2021, he joined Leicester City on loan and a year later he signed for Gian Piero Gasperini's all-action Atalanta side in Italy's Serie A.

"For those of us who have seen him in the Premier League, he really didn't look great for Everton for all of the three years he was there," said Jonathan Wilson, editor of the football magazine The Blizzard.

"And then he went to Fulham where he's most famous for a terrible penalty miss, an attempted Panenka that went wrong. At Leicester, again, he's OK. It's a half a dozen goals, but it's only really under Gasperini that he's really taken off."

"I didn't really know of him before he went to Fulham – that's when I first saw him. He has developed into a tremendous player."

Though Cote d'Ivoire outwitted the Nigerians in the final, Lookman emerged from the Cup of Nations in the team of the tournament and with his own reputation enhanced.

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