By Johnny Edward.
Villarreal winger, Samuel Chukwueze, posted an outstanding display in his 150th LaLiga appearance for the Yellow Submarines, who drew 1-1 at Valencia at the Mestalla stadium on Wednesday, PUNCH Sports Extra reports.
Nicolas Jackson gave the visitors the lead in the 62nd minute only for Samuel Lino to draw the hosts level 10 minutes later.
The 23-year-old, who was making his 32nd league appearance of the season, was substituted for Gerard Moreno with nine minutes left to play.
He becomes the fourth Nigerian with the most LaLiga games after trio Ike Uche, Mutiu Adepoju and Finidi George.
Uche, who spent most of his European career in Spain playing for (Recreativo, Getafe, Zaragoza, Villarreal, Granada and Málaga) at different levels for 13 years made 193 appearances scoring 43 goals, making him the highest Nigerian scorer in the Spanish LaLiga.
Adepoju and Finidi, who were members of the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations Super eagles winning squad, also made 176 and 165 LaLiga appearances respectively.
While Adepoju started out with the Real Madrid B team, he went on to feature for Racing Santander, Real Sociedad and Salamanca, churning out 175 appearances and scoring 22 LaLiga goals.
Finidi made 165 LaLiga appearances playing for Real Betis and Mallorca, notching up 35 goals in the process.
In Italy, Ademola Lookman missed Atalanta’s 3-2 win over Spezia on Wednesday.
The Nigerian, who has scored 15 goals in 30 games across all competitions this season, failed to shrug off the biceps femoris muscle injury that has kept him out of action for a month now.
William Troost-Ekong was an unused substitute for Salernitana, who played out a 3-3 draw against Fiorentina in Salerno.
The 29-year-old has made six Serie A appearances since he joined the club during the January transfer window.
Fiorentina had on their bench an unknown Nigerian, Michael Kayode.