William Troost-Ekong

William Troost-Ekong: The Defender Who Kept Taking Penalties

In February 2024, the Confederation of African Football named a centre-back the best player at the Africa Cup of Nations. He had scored three goals in the tournament — two of them penalties, one of them the opening goal of a final his team then lost 2–1. It is among the strangest individual awards in the competition's history, and the case for it is better than it sounds.

Two Passports, One Choice

William Troost-Ekong was born on 1 September 1993 in the Netherlands, to a Dutch mother, Eleanore Troost, and a Nigerian father. He has two siblings, Emily and Everest, and was educated at Hockerill Anglo-European College in Bishop's Stortford, England — an unusual line on a Super Eagles teamsheet. He trained in the youth systems of Fulham and Tottenham Hotspur before beginning his senior career back in the Netherlands with FC Groningen and FC Dordrecht.

Eligible for both the Netherlands and Nigeria, he chose Nigeria, and debuted on 13 June 2015 against Chad. He would go on to win more than eighty caps and captain the side.

The Long Way Round

His club career reads like a map of the second tier of European football. He signed for KAA Gent in July 2015 and was immediately loaned to Norway's FK Haugesund. He moved to Bursaspor in the Turkish Süper Lig in July 2017, then to Udinese in Serie A in August 2018, where he made thirty-five league appearances in his first season. In September 2020 he signed a five-year contract with Watford, then in the Championship, and later played for Salernitana on loan, PAOK in Greece, Al-Kholood in Saudi Arabia, and from January 2026 Al-Ahli in the Qatar Stars League.

It is not the CV of a superstar. It is the CV of a professional who was always good enough for somebody, in seven countries, for a decade.

The Winner Against South Africa

His international record tells a different story from his club one. At the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations he scored an 89th-minute winner against South Africa, a goal that carried Nigeria towards a third-place finish — the sort of intervention that is normally the last thing asked of a centre-back and, in his case, became the first. He captained the team at the 2021 edition and was named in the group-stage Best XI. By the end he had passed eighty caps, a figure reached by very few Nigerians, and had worn the armband through two continental tournaments.

Ivory Coast, 2024

The 2023 tournament, played in Ivory Coast in early 2024, was his. He converted penalties against Ivory Coast in the group stage and against South Africa in the semi-final — including in the shootout — and scored the opening goal of the final. Nigeria took the lead and could not hold it, losing 2–1 to the hosts. CAF gave him Player of the Tournament ahead of a field that included Equatorial Guinea's Emilio Nsue, who won the Golden Boot with five goals; Angola's Gelson Dala and Egypt's Mostafa Mohamed, who took the Silver and Bronze Boots with four apiece; Ivory Coast's Simon Adingra, named Best Young Player; and South Africa's Ronwen Williams, the tournament's Best Goalkeeper. In other words, the award went to a defender on the losing side over five men who had either scored more or conceded less. His five career AFCON goals set a record for a defender, passing Stephen Keshi's mark.

The Penalty That Cost a World Cup

The same responsibility cut the other way. He played at the 2018 World Cup, but Nigeria failed to reach the 2022 edition after a play-off against Ghana in which Troost-Ekong's penalty was not enough to prevent elimination on away goals. Captaincy of the Super Eagles in that era meant being the man who took the kick in both directions. He announced his retirement from international football on 4 December 2025.

Off the Pitch

He founded the Troost-Ekong Foundation, which works to empower African youth through football and education, and in 2025 AF Global Football launched a scholarship award in his name. Nigeria has recognised him twice with national honours: Member of the Order of the Niger and Member of the Order of the Federal Republic.

Why William Is Called a Genius

The claim, such as it is, rests on temperament rather than on any cognitive gift, and it should be described accurately. Troost-Ekong's distinguishing quality is that he volunteered for the one act in football with no upside — a defender taking penalties at a continental tournament, where scoring is expected and missing is career-defining — and did it repeatedly, in group games, in semi-final shootouts, and in a final. That is not intelligence. It is a specific tolerance for exposure that most players, including most strikers, do not have.

The secondary case is organisational. Centre-backs who captain international sides for the better part of a decade are performing continuous, unglamorous cognitive work: managing a defensive line's height, communicating switches, and holding shape when the game breaks up. His five AFCON goals — a record for a defender — are the visible residue of an invisible job.

The counter-case is real and was made loudly at the time. He won Player of the Tournament having lost the final, from a position where his contribution was measured largely in set-piece and penalty conversion rather than in open play. His club career never reached an elite level: mid-table Serie A, the English Championship, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Qatar. He was never nominated for a global individual honour. And the penalty skill that made his name also failed at the moment Nigeria most needed it, in the Ghana play-off that kept them out of a World Cup. Genius is the wrong word. Nerve, sustained across a decade of being the man who has to decide, is the right one.

Legacy

Troost-Ekong finished his international career as one of Nigeria's most-capped players, its captain through two Africa Cups of Nations, and the highest-scoring defender the competition has produced. He also represents something structurally newer: the diaspora footballer, raised in the Netherlands and educated in England, who chose the country of his father over the country of his birth at a point when it was the harder option. The foundation and the scholarship suggest he intends that choice to outlast the caps. The 2024 award will be argued about for years, which is its own kind of monument.