Ligue 2 – Niort: Junior Olaitan, Benin's rising gem
Junior Olaitan is thriving with Niort in Ligue 2. The 20-year-old Beninese midfielder is finally showing his talent.
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What if Benin have found their new jewel? Junior Olaitan is lighting up Ligue 2 with Niort. This season, the 20-year-old has made 22 league appearances, 9 of them as a starter. His return: 4 goals and 2 assists. Those numbers give Chamois Niortais (18th, 23 points) hope of staying up. On 03 February, the midfielder had got people talking with a sensational goal: a lob from inside his own half to beat... Saturnin Allagbé, his compatriot who keeps goal for Dijon.
“I know the Dijon goalkeeper well (Saturnin Allagbé, Editor's note), who is a Benin international, like me. I know he often comes a long way off his line, so he can get to the ball first if a striker is played in behind. When I won the ball in midfield, I looked at the keeper for a second and decided to shoot”, Junior Olaitan recalls in an interview given to So Foot.
The magnificent goal from Beninese prodigy @Juniorolaitan15 🤯 our goalkeeper @SatAllagbe couldn't do anything about it 🙄 pic.twitter.com/NnmEteNRLB
— Bénin Football 🇧🇯🐆 (@FootballBenin) February 3, 2023
The season he has come into his own
In the 2022-2023 campaign, Junior Olaitan is finally able to show his qualities. In the previous one, the Benin international (10 caps, 1 goal) struggled. Arriving straight from Benin in January 2022, he found it hard to establish himself. He played only six games in 2021-2022 (2 starts). What's more, the player had no idea what lay ahead of him when he left his country. “When I started performing well in Benin, there was quite a lot of talk about me, and clubs were following me, like Lille, Brest, Nantes... It wasn't for me to choose, but for my president. I arrived in France in the course of January, without knowing where I would play. I was supposed to join a club, but I don't know what happened, I didn't sign. I waited and, on 30 January, I was told: ‘You're going to Niort.’ So I took the train there with my president”.
However, Junior Olaitan has put that episode behind him. Now performing on the pitch, the player who is being compared to Paul Pogba is learning from his team-mates. “It's going pretty well (his season). I've played a lot, even if I haven't always started. I think I'm growing little by little. After the game, when I get home, I look at my mistakes and the next day in training I know what I need to work on. For example, it's clear I need to be more efficient in front of goal”. With Benin having been in search of a new figurehead for a few years, Junior Olaitan looks well placed to embody that hope. For now, it is Niort who are counting on him to stay up in Ligue 2.