A great match on the biggest stage in English football. Wembley hosted Sunderland and the Wycombe Wanderers (and their supporters) in a worthy match of the season, hem Promotion to the Championship (Second Division). Full seats to watch two Third Division teams play, enough to provoke the envy of many First Division teams in many latitudes. Early on, Sunderland took the helm of the label and Wycombe had something to do. In the 74th minute, the coach sent a striker who would spend his last minutes as a professional footballer. It will be at Wembley that Adebayo Akinfenwa, known in the football world as “The Beast”, will perform his last dance.
Akinfenwa will play 16 minutes, plus a few extra minutes, but his presence on the field will not be enough to change the fate of this. hem of the upgrade. Sunderland would still score an extra goal to secure his return to the championship after four seasons in the first league, and finally a step forward for the six-times England champions who have entered an accelerating decline. For Akinfenwa, the story didn’t end as he wanted, as he was the champion of another promotion, and he scored the winning goal. But it’s over.
At Wembley, the competitive life of Sahid Adebayo Akinfenwa, 40, has ended, 22 of whom play football. There were 14 teams that scored 233 goals in 793 matches, in a career that ran through Lithuania and Wales and never reached the Premier League. He always defied the stereotype of the slim, athletic soccer player. Akinfenwa is anything but slender. He is the exact opposite, a body with a length of 1.85 meters and a weight of 103 kg, who lived as a football player for more than two decades. As he once said, “Sometimes it’s good to be different.”
Akinfenwa is considered the strongest player in world football, with the strength in his arms to lift 190 kg. But if that were the case, he would not have had such a long career. He knew how to play ball and he knew how to score goals. “My career and my numbers speak for themselves. Saying I have something to prove, saying, ‘Look, I know how to play, I’m not just a big guy,’ isn’t something that motivates me in life,” he said.
Born in London and a Liverpool fan, Akinfenwa was an 18-year-old immigrant, choosing his destination for a country he didn’t know, Lithuania, where he learned to connect the importance of things. He was subjected to death threats for being black, even from his team’s fans. “We are a product of our environments and experiences. I grew up a lot in Lithuania, and I was less vulnerable. We can’t control other people’s perceptions, and as long as we feel comfortable, we are fine. They tell me they want to kill me because of the color of my skin. Why should I care when they say I’m fat?” , he said in a recent interview with the athlete.
Back in the British Isles, Akinfenwa gained fame as a “beast” and was always at ease with celebrities whose imposing physique gave him. “I like being the biggest on the field, and I don’t see other players with arms bigger than mine,” says the striker, who has become a favorite in English football’s minor divisions despite never having been in the second division. The end of his career – it was in 2020, he climbed to the championship with Wycombe, he even received a video congratulatory message from Jurgen Klopp, the Liverpool coach.
“I don’t apologize for being me. Being true to ourselves is the most powerful thing we can do as individuals.” guardian Forward with the weight above the three figures. “I was told I was too old to play football and I played this game for 22 years. I don’t need anyone to pat me on the back. I sit and say to myself, ‘B, I was fine.’”
Still on Wembley Stadium, Bayou, ‘the Beast’, nearly cried to Sky Sports’ microphones, ending the conversation with a hug to the journalist who was being interviewed. “I never thought I would keep playing at 40, I never thought my last kick on the ball would be here. Am I going to continue? No no no. My knees have been screaming at me for so long. And now the world follows, I’m going to conquer the world.”