Peter Utaka, the oldest player to score in the ACL, little known

Born in Enugu, Peter Utaka is a professional footballer and former member of the Nigerian national team. Today, despite being forty years old, we can still witness his continued performance as a striker in Japan, practically on the other side of the world.

“Utaka is definitely a highly respected player in our country, partly because he has played in the Japanese football league for many years,” says Masa Sasajima, who has followed the J-League for many years as a sports betting expert and editor-in-chief of BETTING IN JAPAN.

The Nigerian footballer began his professional football career when he moved to Croatia aged 16 to join Dinamo Zagreb, after trialling at Ismaily, where his older brother John was a cult figure. He then signed a contract with Belgian second division club Patro Eisden Maasmechelen in 2003, eventually allowing him to scale his career to international level.

After a successful season there, he was promoted to a first division club, KVC Westerlo, then joined second division club, Royal Antwerp FC, where he quickly became a mainstay, before moving on to Odense BK in Denmark, Dalian Arbin in China and finally to Japan’s J-League in 2015. In 2018, he featured periodically with Vejle BK in Denmark for a short time, but only after several months, he returned to the football field in Japan.

In December 2018, his full transfer to Ventforet Kofu, his current home, was announced, where he played 40 games and scored 20 goals in the 2019 season.

In Kofu during the 2023 AFC Champions League, Utaka scored twice in the final group match against Buriram, helping the team advance to the finals of the tournament and breaking the record for the oldest player to score in the ACL, previously held by Cristiano Ronaldo. It is a little-known fact in Nigeria that he still holds the record (39 years, 10 months and 0 days).