Frank Onyeka was discovered playing football for Faith Motors Academy as a teenager, back home in Benin City, Nigeria by Churchill Oliseh - the brother of ex-Nigeria international Sunday Oliseh and the man credited with discovering Obafemi Martins - who brought him to Ebedei, the third-tier club he owns and manages, in 2013.

Within three years, he had signed an 18-month deal with Danish Superliga club Midtjylland, for whom Ebedei act as an African academy, after a three-month trial in towards the end of 2015 and an anxious wait to find out whether the Danes wanted him.

A year in the academy followed, before his first-team debut in September 2017 and a season where he played in multiple positions - centre-back, defensive midfield, central midfield, attacking midfield, centre forward and on the right flank - to help Midtjylland to the title.

Onyeka spent another three seasons in Denmark, during which time he earned his senior Nigeria debut and played for Midjylland in the Champions League, most notably helping to hold Liverpool to a 1-1 draw at home in December 2020.

Owing to Brentford owner Matthew Benham’s previous majority shareholding at the club, the Bees’ recruitment team were well aware of Onyeka’s abilities and made him the first signing of the Premier League era when they brought him in on 20 July 2021.

He regularly featured in the middle of the park before AFCON, but then only three more times before the end of the season. Similarly in 2022/23, he made just 10 starts, but was handed a new contract in August 2023, which will keep him in west London until the summer of 2027.

“Right now, I feel more comfortable, doing what I’m doing and playing my game,” he said in the Long Read. “Thomas [Frank] has put that trust in me to do on the pitch and do what I do. For me, knowing that the coach has trust in me is so important.”

In the middle of a much more positive 2023/24 season - during which he scored his first goal for the club, against Sheffield United in April 2024 - he departed for AFCON again but, this time, he came home with a runners-up medal after Nigeria were beaten 2-1 by Ivory Coast.