{"id":24203,"date":"2020-04-22T15:11:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T15:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/nigeria\/?p=24203"},"modified":"2020-04-22T15:11:46","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T15:11:46","slug":"chelsea-caf-send-birthday-greetings-to-nigerias-most-capped-midfielder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/chelsea-caf-send-birthday-greetings-to-nigerias-most-capped-midfielder","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea, CAF Send Birthday Greetings To Nigeria&#8217;s Most Capped Midfielder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Africa Press-Nigeria:<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea and Confederation of African Football have sent birthday greetings to legendary Nigerian midfielder John Obi Mikel, who is celebrating his 33rd birthday today.<\/p>\n<p>Mikel is the most capped Nigerian midfielder in history, earning 90 caps before calling time on his international career shortly after the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.<\/p>\n<p>He made 372 appearances for Chelsea across ten and a half seasons, winning the Premier League twice, the FA Cup four times, the League Cup twice, and the Champions League and Europa League during his time at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea posted on Instagram : &#8220;33 today! ? Have a great birthday, @Mikel_John_Obi! ??&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Governing body of African football, CAF tweeted : &#8220;Happy Birthday to Nigeria&#8217;s retired midfielder John Obi Mikel!<\/p>\n<p>Mikel featured in two World Cups 2014 and 2018, and was a member of the Super Eagles squads to five Africa Cup of Nations, winning the title in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>He has also played for Plateau United, Lyn Olso, Tianjin Teda, Middlesbrough and Trabzonspor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa Press-Nigeria: Chelsea and Confederation of African Football have sent birthday greetings to legendary Nigerian midfielder John Obi Mikel, who is celebrating his 33rd birthday today. Mikel is the most capped Nigerian midfielder in history, earning 90 caps before calling time on his international career shortly after the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations. He made [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":11120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[801,174],"class_list":["post-24203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-chelsea-fc","tag-football-in-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Chelsea, CAF Send Birthday Greetings To Nigeria&#039;s Most Capped Midfielder - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Africa Press-Nigeria:Chelsea and Confederation of African Football have sent birthday greetings to legendary Nigerian midfielder John Obi Mikel, who is\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/chelsea-caf-send-birthday-greetings-to-nigerias-most-capped-midfielder\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chelsea, CAF Send Birthday Greetings To Nigeria&#039;s Most Capped Midfielder\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Africa Press-Nigeria:Chelsea and Confederation of African Football have sent birthday greetings to legendary Nigerian midfielder John Obi Mikel, who is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/chelsea-caf-send-birthday-greetings-to-nigerias-most-capped-midfielder\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-04-22T15:11:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/2019\/06\/edozie-set-to-join-city-despite-chelsea-interest__18595_.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"799\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"533\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"alico\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"alico\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/chelsea-caf-send-birthday-greetings-to-nigerias-most-capped-midfielder#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/chelsea-caf-send-birthday-greetings-to-nigerias-most-capped-midfielder\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"alico\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/50afd2ef4f0e900bd0a176404a8484a7\"},\"headline\":\"Chelsea, CAF Send Birthday Greetings To Nigeria&#8217;s Most Capped Midfielder\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-04-22T15:11:46+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/chelsea-caf-send-birthday-greetings-to-nigerias-most-capped-midfielder\"},\"wordCount\":169,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/chelsea-caf-send-birthday-greetings-to-nigerias-most-capped-midfielder#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/2019\/06\/edozie-set-to-join-city-despite-chelsea-interest__18595_.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Chelsea FC\",\"Football in Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/chelsea-caf-send-birthday-greetings-to-nigerias-most-capped-midfielder#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/chelsea-caf-send-birthday-greetings-to-nigerias-most-capped-midfielder\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/chelsea-caf-send-birthday-greetings-to-nigerias-most-capped-midfielder\",\"name\":\"Chelsea, CAF Send Birthday Greetings To Nigeria's Most Capped Midfielder - 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