{"id":99635,"date":"2025-08-21T15:33:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T15:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/99635\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T15:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T15:33:08","slug":"okafor-ready-for-new-challenge-after-leeds-move-a-dream-come-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/99635\/","title":{"rendered":"Okafor &#8216;ready for new challenge&#8217; after Leeds move: &#8220;A dream come true&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Noah Okafor has revealed that his dream was always to play in the Premier League as a kid, after swapping AC Milan for Leeds United.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this afternoon, Leeds <a href=\"https:\/\/sempremilan.com\/official-leeds-sign-noah-okafor-milan\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">confirmed the signing of Okafor<\/a>\u00a0on a four-year contract, subject to a work permit and international clearance. The fee is believed to be in the region of \u20ac20m, and it brings an end to an up-and-down two-year spell with Milan.<\/p>\n<p>The 25-year-old began his career at FC Basel and then got a move to Austrian club Red Bull Salzburg. Interestingly, he failed a medical at RB Leipzig in January and Leeds are part-owned by Red Bull, so it is clear he has been in the orbit of the sporting side of the energy drink company.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018A dream come true\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Okafor spoke to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.leedsunited.com\/en\/news\/noah-okafor-i-am-ready-for-this-new-challenge\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">LUTV<\/a> after the move was made official and spoke about the reasons for making the switch to England.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s an amazing day, I\u2019m really excited. As a kid, I dreamed of playing in the Premier League. That\u2019s why for me it was quite an easy decision. So I said, yeah, my football suits the Premier League, this is like a dream come true. I can\u2019t wait to step on the field,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI heard that the Premier League is the best league in the world, it\u2019s so intense. I have loads of friends that played there or are playing there. I\u2019m really, really excited. I can\u2019t wait, like I said before. I\u2019m also ready for this new challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"750\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Okafor_Signing_Photo.jpg\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-308198 has-webp\" alt=\"noah okafor\"  data- style=\"aspect-ratio:1200\/750;max-width:1200px\"\/>Image: Leeds United<\/p>\n<p>Noah will be linking back up with a couple of familiar faces to him, but also will recognise his team-mates from the pre-season friendly in Dublin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know Brenden Aaronson, he\u2019s a friend of mine. I used to play with him in Salzburg a couple of years ago. I also know Isaac Schmidt, he\u2019s from Switzerland. And Lukas Nmecha, I know a little bit. For the other guys, I\u2019m excited to get to know them better.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[In Dublin] I was like, why are there so many fans in a friendly game? And then I saw on the screen it was like 50,000. So I was like, wow. And it was quite loud, but I heard in the stadium [Elland Road], the atmosphere should be crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although he might not be a direct replacement, it seems that <a href=\"https:\/\/sempremilan.com\/why-milan-decided-boniface-worth-gamble\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Victor Boniface will join from Bayer Leverkusen soon<\/a> to restock Milan\u2019s forward department, on a loan with option to buy deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Noah Okafor has revealed that his dream was always to play in the Premier League as a kid,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-99635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}