Who the hell was… Caleb Ekuban — Square Ball 14/11/24

All caps

Written by: Chris McMenamy

Artwork by: Eamonn Dalton

To paraphrase a viral tweet, football fans can literally just sit around naming old players and have the best time. So welcome to the second instalment of a new series of blogs in which we try our best to remember obscure former Leeds United players and have the best time while doing so. After kicking things off with enemy of autocorrect Amdy Faye, now it’s over to Caleb Ekuban.

Wait… who?

Only one of the top scorers in the 2016/17 Albanian first division! Ekuban’s arrival was announced by the club with the headline ‘WHITES SNAP UP FORWARD’. All caps, like MF DOOM. They’ve since deleted the post, which could be a consequence of the website’s transformation, or just sheer embarrassment.

Caleb and his brother Joseph both played professionally in Italy, but at separate clubs. Caleb came through the youth ranks at Chievo, while his little bro Joseph graduated from Hellas Verona’s academy. Both were born outside Verona, but their parents moved from Ghana because their dad, Kobina, was a pastor, hence why Caleb chose to play internationally for Ghana.

So when did he play for us?

Ekuban joined Leeds in the summer of 2017, AKA Victor Orta’s first transfer window. The man was playing moneyball with no money, or ball. Ekuban arrived off the back of a seventeen-goal season in Albania and was one of many ‘solutions’ Leeds experimented with when ungrateful bastard Chris Wood decided he wanted to play in the Premier League. For Burnley. Pathetic.

Did he do owt?

Sort of, but not really. Ekuban made his debut in the League Cup against Port Vale, scoring the fourth as Leeds won 4-1 on a night better remembered for Samu Saiz’s hat-trick. In time-honoured tradition, a couple of weeks later he picked up a bad injury in his first league start against Sunderland that kept him out for three months.

Upon returning, he got injured again and missed another nine games, but still managed to make twenty league appearances, albeit mostly from the bench. We only got one more goal from Ekuban, the opener on Good Friday against Bolton at Elland Road.

I remember going to that game — there was a fella outside Billy’s statue bearing a cross and shouting: “God was among us.” It was March 2018 and we were 14th with Paul Heckingbottom in charge. God wasn’t among us, he was a good few months away.

What should we remember him for?

That goal against Bolton on Good Friday. For a brief moment, I decided he was the answer to our attacking woes. Pierre-Michel Lasogga couldn’t r̶u̶n̶ do it on his own, so Hecky decided to put them up front together against Phil Parkinson’s woeful Bolton side. It worked that day, and then never again after that.

Ekuban also ended the game playing in a 4-4-2 with Jay-Roy Grot, the gargantuan ‘footballer’ who was the best back-up we had at striker, and our prime midfield creator that day was Eunan O’Kane, so no wonder it didn’t really work except when playing one of the worst teams in the league.

A few days after the, eh, glorious win over Bolton, Ekuban missed a sitter against Fulham about ten seconds before Aleksandar Mitrović scored at the other end, which left him so distraught that Kalvin Phillips had to console him while Mitrović was celebrating.

Has he done anything since?

Yes. Marcelo Bielsa didn’t fancy him, so he left for Trabzonspor in Turkey, where he was so popular with the club’s president Ahmet Ağaoğlu that he told the Turkish media:

“We have an option for Ekuban until May 31. We will renew our contract. If Leeds United gives us £10m so that we don’t use the option, then we will consider it.”

Nobody really knew what he was on about, but Leeds didn’t given Trabzonspor £10m to re-sign Ekuban, and after scoring 29 goals across three seasons in Turkey he joined Genoa in summer 2021.

Ekuban rotated with Kelvin Yeboah, nephew of Tony, and an ageing Mattia Destro in a Genoa side that couldn’t buy a goal in Serie A. The trio scored ten times all season, with Destro scoring nine of them and Ekuban contributing the other.

Genoa were relegated to Serie B, but found new life. Ekuban earned plaudits for his work rate and pressing, playing more of a bit-part role and scoring twice in fourteen games.

I was at Genoa’s Stadio Luigi Ferraris the day they were promoted back to Serie A in May last year. They faced Giuseppe Bellusci’s Ascoli and were two goals up when Ekuban’s number appeared on the fourth official’s board, but the place erupted, with 32,000 fans shouting “E-KU-BANNNN!” in unison with the stadium PA. He nearly scored moments after coming on and ran a tired, old Bellusci ragged, much to my niche amusement.

Genoa held on to win 2-1 and results elsewhere meant they were promoted, and it was one hell of a party. There was a music festival in the city that evening, and most live bands were commandeered by drunk Genoa fans demanding they play football songs, while the ultras set off fireworks in the city’s main square. All because of Caleb Ekuban. Kind of.

Ekuban has been injured since mid-September and his absence prompted Genoa’s definitely not skint or dodgy owners 777 Partners to pluck for some character on a free. In the same week that a 48-year-old Francesco Totti teased a comeback to football, Genoa signed Mario Balotelli on a free. The last time Balotelli kicked a ball in Serie A, he was playing for Brescia and falling out with Massimo Cellino, who he threatened to sue. A front two of Ekuban and Balotelli when both are fit? Sign. Me. Up.

By no means a cult hero, nor whatever the hell Steve Morison was, Caleb Ekuban will always get a thumbs up from me for being inoffensively fine at Leeds, and something of a cult hero elsewhere.