Yakubu Aiyegbeni is a Nigerian former professional footballer who last played as a striker for Coventry City. Nicknamed “The Yak”, he was born on November 22, 1982 in Benin City, Edo State.
He is the second highest African goalscorer in Premier League history with 96 goals and the third highest scorer in the history of the Nigeria national football team, and represented them at four African Cup of Nations finals, the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the football at the 2000 Summer Olympics.
As a teenager, he started his career with Julius Berger FC in Lagos. He was later loaned to Portuguese club Gil Vicente. His performances in the 2002–03 UEFA Champions League for Maccabi Haifa earned a loan move to English club Portsmouth which became permanent as they were promoted to the Premier League in 2003. He has since appeared in over 250 Premier League matches for Portsmouth, Middlesbrough, Everton, and Blackburn Rovers.
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Yakubu made his full international debut on 22 April 2000 in a 4–0 home win in Lagos against Eritrea in qualification for the 2002 African Cup of Nations. He scored his first international goal in an away win against Namibia on 16 June 2001 in the same qualification campaign. On 9 February 2002, Yakubu scored the only goal of the third-place play-off against Mali after 29 minutes. However, he was not named in the squad selected by new manager Festus Onigbinde for the 2002
He got married in 2008 to Yvonne Lameen Ikhana, the daughter of former Nigerian international footballer Kadiri Ikhana, who is also the father-in-law to former Nigerian international footballer Patrick Ovie. The couple have 2 daughters named Kayla and Katriel.
