How a Rain Shower Brought Nigerian Football Star Sunday Oliseh and His Moroccan Wife Together
She was simply looking for shelter from a downpour. He had come to buy CDs. More than 30 years after their chance encounter, former Nigeria captain Sunday Oliseh recounts how he met Hafida, who would become his wife.
One summer day, Sunday Oliseh heads to a music store about 30 minutes from his home. The footballer is browsing the aisles for R&B CDs when a young woman walks into the shop.
She has arrived by bicycle. Caught by surprise by the rain, she has stopped to take shelter and look at the records. Oliseh notices her immediately.
“I thought I couldn’t let her leave,” the former international says in an interview with The Play Zone, reported Thursday, October 29, by Nigerian outlet Daily Post.
He then decides to approach her with a rather direct opening line: “How can you be so beautiful?”
The young woman is Hafida, who is of Moroccan origin. The couple have been together since 1994 and have two children, Denzel and Shanice.
Sunday Oliseh, however, has played for some of Europe’s biggest clubs, from Ajax Amsterdam to Juventus Turin and Borussia Dortmund. He also captained the Nigeria national team.
In an interview with Dutch magazine ELF Voetbal in 2017, he said that meeting Hafida was the best moment of his career in Europe.
