For Chinonso Offor, the road to Major League Soccer has been anything but straightforward.
There are many well-trodden paths to the United States top-flight; the homegrown system, coming up from South America, and crossing the pond after a long and successful career in Europe are just a few of the most common routes.
But have you ever heard of a player arriving in Chicago from Nigeria, via Northern Cyprus and Latvia? The was the reality faced by Offor, who joined Binatl Ylmaz - a club not even affiliated with FIFA - back in 2017.
"I was still in high school and at the academy, but they knew I wasn't going to stay there for long," Offor recounted to 90min in an exclusive interview. "They wanted to get me some exposure, to travel and experience playing with different people, and get match videos and footage."
"Chino", as he's known to those close to him, was born in the Nigerian Middle Belt town of Jos in May 2000. But after just a year, he and his family had to flee to Ekwulobia in the south-east of the country due to political riots.
