PREMIER LEAGUE

Ogbonna on the night he could have died.. and why he chose to play for Italy

FOR Angelo Ogbonna, the memory of the night he could have died still produces a lump in his throat.

It will be 11 years in December since West Ham’s Italy international – then a Torino player – skidded off a bridge in his car in thick fog and plunged into a river on the outskirts of Turin.

He is midway through drawing a diagram of his car’s position on the road and the barrier on the bridge that it smashed through when he throws the pen down and takes a second.

“I’m lucky to be here talking to you,” he said. “I was driving to the airport in the middle of the night and I fell asleep.

“I woke up and realised I was on the opposite side of the road. It was so quick. I hit the fence and I went into the water in the river. I’d been on the bridge.

“I was so lucky that someone had been not too far behind me. He’d seen my car weaving around on the road and maybe he was scared, wondering: ‘What the hell is he doing?’

“Then he didn’t see my car any more. But he saved me. He looked on the floor when he passed and saw a piece of my car.

“That’s when he realised and called the emergency services. I’ve never seen him again. I don’t even know his name!”

Now a parent, Ogbonna is father to son Samuel with his partner Laura, and the experience on that bridge has taught the former Juventus defender to live in the moment.

“Respect life. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today,” he said.

It is for that reason Ogbonna chose to represent Italy ahead of Nigeria, the country of his parents’ birth.

Declan Rice may still be under fire for defecting from the Republic of Ireland to England but Ogbonna – born in Italy – has solidarity.

“Declan grew up here,” he said. “For me you could say ‘Angelo, your parents are Nigerian’, but I grew up in Italy. I grew up with the Italian culture so it was much easier to choose Italy.”

That is Ogbonna’s answer to questions about Inter Milan striker Romelu Lukaku, and if black players should heed the call from ex-west Ham star Demba Ba not to play in Italy until the country deals with the racism.

“That’s going too far,” said Ogbonna. “If you put some rules in place it can stop. No