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Ademola Lookman has revealed he lied to his parents about wanting to become an accountant.

The 19-year-old says his dream was to make it as a professional footballer but told his mum and dad what they wanted to hear.

Lookman, speaking to FourFourTwo magazine, admits pursuing his target of playing football for a living was tough but says the death of a team-mate inspired him to make it.

The teenage forward joined Everton in a deal worth in excess of £10m in January from League One side Charlton Athletic after being spotted playing in amateur leagues in South London.

But Lookman says his career could’ve gone in a different direction.

“My parents are from Nigeria and in our culture they want you to be an accountant or a lawyer,” Lookman said.

“I told them I was going to be an accountant but I was lying.

“I only ever wanted to be a footballer.”

And that desire only heightened after a member of the Sunday League side he played for, Waterloo FC, passed away.

“One of my team-mates at Waterloo died,” he told FourFourTwo.

“His name was Josh. He came to training with a swollen knee.

“The next week we were told he’d died of a blood clot.

“It was so sudden that it brought us all together and we vowed to each other that we’d try our best to make it in football for him.”

Lookman had an Everton debut to remember, scoring against Manchester City to cap off a brilliant 4-0 win for the Blues.

“It’s been crazy!” he said.

“I’ve watched the goal back 100 times.

“When the ball comes out to me, I was thinking , ‘I’m one-on-one with the keeper, I can actually score.

“I celebrated with a knee slide. If you see my expression, I don’t think that I smiled until after I came off the pitch - that’s how shocked I was.

“Scoring on my debut, nothing gets better than that.”

He added: “My team-mates and coaches gave me a round of applause as I walked into the dressing room and signed my shirt - it was a great moment.

“We stopped at some traffic lights (on the way home) and my family said, ‘You can scream now’ - and I did.”