Newcastle United under-21 forward Afner Ca scored twice in an emphatic 4-1 Premier League Cup win over Luton Town u21s on Friday night, continuing his promising start at the club.
Ca's tribute to Kevin Keegan
Ca had only been a Newcastle United player for a couple of days when he felt it was important to join the thousands of football fans who gathered at St James' Park to pay tribute to the late Kevin Keegan. Keegan passed away on July 20, leading to an outpouring of love from the football world. His impact on every club he worked with as both a player and a manager was telling, with the sheer volume of tributes in the wake of his passing, and that was evident in Newcastle more than anywhere else.
St James' Park became a memorial for Keegan as fans gathered at the home of the Magpies to pay tribute to a man who was a legend on Tyneside, both as a manager and as a player. Ca had joined Newcastle from Levante the same day Keegan died, and two days later he took a metro over to the city centre and visited the stadium himself to show his own personal appreciation.
He did so of his own volition, and it spoke of a 19-year-old keen to ingratiate himself in the culture of his new home and learn all about why Newcastle is such an institution of English football.
Settling into a new environment
Moving to a new city is something Ca has become accustomed to since leaving his native Guinea-Bissau as a youngster to join Portuguese side Amora. He then moved to Valencia last summer to spend a season with Spanish side Levante before Newcastle made their move to sign him.
Since then, under-21s lead coach Robbie Stockdale and his coaching staff have worked hard with him behind the scenes on his game but also to help him settle into a new environment. He has largely had to play second fiddle to the free-scoring Georgia under-21 international Vakhtang Salia, but he has started to find his feet over the last few weeks.
Ca came off the bench to score in an impressive EFL Trophy win over League Two side York City last month, and a week later he set up Matheos Ferreira to score in a narrow defeat to League One high-fliers Bradford City.
Arriving on the big stage
On Friday night, it felt like he truly arrived as he scored twice in an emphatic 4-1 win over Luton Town u21s in their opening match of the Premier League Cup. Ca used his pace to latch on to a clever ball in behind the Hatters defence from Henry Johnson and he raced into the penalty area from the right hand side before rifling a left-footed effort beyond goalkeeper Charlie Booth.
He then doubled his tally for the evening when he was quickest to react to Sam Alabi's effort crashing back off the near post to slam home the rebound at Whitley Park.
Sporting director Ross Wilson described Ca as an 'exciting profile' in the summer, and that has been echoed by Stockdale after working closely with him across the last two-and-a-half months.
"He is growing and developing," Stockdale told Chronicle Live. "[He's still] Got some raw attributes to him, which we need to tidy up. But again, a different type of profile to the other forwards we've got. He likes to run, likes to use his physical presence in the game. I'd like to be a little bit tidier when he's holding the ball up, bringing people into play."
"He's new to the building, he's new to the environment. I actually think a lot of the experiences players get when they come in, it's not just the games, it's our training programme. So we work the players ever so hard because we try to prepare them for first team football. Afner, he's buzzing in there, but he's scored a couple of goals and he's a really interesting player. His English is coming on when he wants to hear the right things. Maybe gives you the deaf ear sometimes when he doesn't, but he's a really good boy as well. That's the one thing he's eager to learn and he's adding to the team."
"So getting the opportunities, finishing those opportunities can only give confidence to young players, particularly centre-forwards and strikers. But with that, the rest of his game needs to be good as well and that's the bit we're working on."
Ca will look to continue his promising run of form on Tuesday evening when Newcastle's under-21s make the short journey down the A19 to take on Hartlepool United in the National League Cup.
