Onazi rues Super Eagles and Trabzonspor 'betrayal' after taking painkillers to play matches

Super Eagles midfielder Ogenyi Onazi has opened up on how he picked up an injury that almost ended his career at his former club, Trabzonspor.

The 29-year-old midfield enforcer revealed that he play through the pain for Trabzonspor during the club's chase for the Turkish Super Lig title during the 2019/20 season.

Onazi played a total of nine (9) league matches for Trabzonspor during an injury-blighted season for the midfielder as the club chased down Istanbul Basaksehir for the league title.

In an interview with Omasports, Onazi stated that the team's doctor gave him painkillers to get through matches till his Achilles tendon got completely ruptured. 

"He [the doctor] was giving me painkillers so I would not feel pain, but using it to play, because, at that time, Trabzonspor wanted to become champions," Onazi said.

"They couldn’t risk me staying out. So when I used it to play that was when it completely ruptured because I was forcing it. I had three surgeries on the same leg and I was out for a year without playing.”

Onazi also stated that he expected to have been eased back into the national team fold by former Super Eagles head coach Gernot Rohr. 

The Super Eagles midfielder said that as 'one of the important players in the national team', he did not expect to just go off the team in the manner he did. 

Onazi continued: "At this point, after my surgery when I came back, as somebody who’s one of the important players in the national team, I was thinking that the coach [Gernot Rohr] would call me and tell me ‘even if you wouldn’t play the game, come and start gradually.

"You have been one of the people who stood by me when I took this job, you did everything, you played every game’. But just like that, I went off from the team.

However, the former Lazio player noted that he strived to return to full fitness and play football again.

"But it never bothered me because I am a fighter. I fought my way back to fitness, did everything I could to make sure I played," Onazi concluded. 

After leaving Trabzonspor, Onazi played for Denizlispor and had short stints in Denmark and Lithuania before signing with Saudi-Arabian second division side, Al-Adalah.