As the only British citizen playing for the Giants, it would be natural to expect Osi Umenyiora to serve as tour guide this weekend for this unprecedented international football game against the Dolphins.
After all, Umenyiora was born in England and lived there until he was seven years old. Who better to show his teammates the lay of the land?
“They better not (follow me), man, they’ll be lost,” Umenyiora said jokingly yesterday. “Because I don’t know where I’m at, I don’t know where I’m going.”
So there’s not much at all Umenyiora remembers about his formative years, growing up in Golders Green in North West London. And keep in mind he considers his home to be Nigeria, where he lived from ages seven to 14. This is not an ordinary trip for anyone, as Sunday’s game at Wembley Stadium is the first of its kind for the NFL outside of North America.
Tonight at 6 p.m., the Giants board their special charter flight for the overseas voyage. For Umenyiora, it’s a journey he knows is special – he hasn’t been back in London since he left 18 years ago – but perhaps not in an overly emotional sense.
“I guess I’m a different kind of guy,” the sack-master defensive end said. “I don’t really get excited about anything. I just figure we’re going out there to win a game. Even though I am going back to London, I’m not really that excited.”
Umenyiora, who turns 26 next month, spent the first years of his life in London, along with his siblings, with his father, John, and stepmother, Ijgoma. John owned a communications company and had business dealings in England.
“I don’t remember much about it at all,” said Umenyiora, who has lost all traces of his once-pronounced Cockney accent. “I was too young. So much has happened since then. It just kind of pushed it out my mind a little bit.”
When Osi was seven, John moved his business to his native Nigeria, and that’s where Umenyiora lived until his high school years, when the family relocated to Auburn, Ala.
“They sent us all over there to get educated, because if you get an education in America, you can go back to Nigeria and get a better job,” Umenyiora said. “I don’t think there’s a better job over there for me.”
He is doing quite nicely in his current occupation. The player who returns to England arrives as a conquering hero. Umenyiora is tied for the NFL lead (with Jared Allen of the Chiefs) with eight sacks and twice in the past four weeks was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week.
All this from a guy who did not play football at all until he was 14. Umenyiora started off as a defensive tackle and wasn’t an instant success. “I was just out there running around. I really wasn’t that good in high school,” he said. “There’s no way you could like football coming from a different country and playing for the first time.”
Although he is attempting to downplay this event, Umenyiora will have a large cheering section. He’s purchased about 25 tickets. His biological mother, Chinelo Chukwueke, will make the six-hour flight from Nigeria to see her son play in person for the first time.
“It’s a little exciting, but it’s not going to make me play any harder than I was going to play already,” Umenyiora said. “I don’t think it’s any extra motivation because I don’t believe in things like that. If that was the case, I need to give the Maras and the Tisches back all the money I’ve taken from them. I’m very, very happy my family’s coming, but it’s not going to change the way I prepare for the football game.”
If these feelings sound a bit conflicted, consider Umenyiora’s teammates.
“Osi told me the other day he was from London,” Plaxico Burress said. “I said, ‘I thought you were from Africa?’ ”
This weekend, he’s from London.
“I’m British,” he stated. “They should give me a little extra cheers. It should be a home game for us, not Miami.”