No footballer has scored more goals in 2023 than the Napoli striker in the five major leagues. The Nigerian striker makes the Parthenopean team dream in the Old Continent
In November 2021, Inter Milan centre-back Skriniar sent Victor Osimhen to the operating room with a head jump with 20 fractures to his face. His eye dislocated and in five hours they reconstructed his face with six plates and 18 titanium screws. “It was as if his head had been put under a press,” the surgeon who operated on Nigerian Gianpaolo Tartaro told Il Corriere dello Sport. Since returning, he’s played games wearing a protective mask that could very well be that of a Marvel superhero. The obligation to wear it has long passed, but the player insists: he does not want to take it off at all, it is a symbol of his football and behind it is a bite in the form of a striker.
No footballer has scored more goals in 2023 than the Napoli striker in the five major leagues (10 goals); In fact, only this season he has been passed by Norwegian striker Erling Haaland of Manchester City (32 goals in all competitions). If the Italian team dominates in Italy and dreams of Europe after their Champions League round of 16 victory against Eintracht Frankfurt, it is largely thanks to this striker who was born 24 years ago in Lagos and who he grew up with as a child. emergency was forced to work. “It was the only hope to give my family a decent life,” he confessed to the British newspaper The Independent. Osimhen has a great life story. He lost his mother when he was 6 years old, and three months later his father lost his job, so he and his seven siblings had to make a living selling street food. In his spare time, the striker rummaged in garbage cans for football boots. “Sometimes I would find a Nike for my right foot and then I would look for the other left foot and then I would have Adidas or Reebok; my sister arranged them so that I could play,” the striker explains in an interview with The Independent. He played on the street and ended up at the Synergy Ultimate Straikers football school in Lagos and a phone call from Emmanuel Amunike, a former Barca player, to join playing for the Nigerian team changed his life.
Dreams led Osimhen out of poverty to lead his team to the Conquest of the Under-17 World Cup (10 goals in seven games) and to be one of the greatest talents in football today. “I play football because I think it is the only hope for my family and me to live a decent life,” he said in an interview with the official Napoli media. He scored 18 goals in Serie A and two in the Champions League, more than 30% of his team’s goals, and scored seven consecutive games in the Italian championship, breaking the records of Diego Armando Maradona and Gonzalo Higuaín in the group stage broke. all history.
Clubs such as Liverpool, Manchester United or Chelsea have set their sights on him and there are talks of figures in excess of 120 million euros. The rising price was in line with the football progression shown. Charleroi bought him from Wolfsburg for 3.5 million, Lille paid Charleroi for 22.4 million after 19 goals in 35 games and Napoli brought him to Italy in 2020 for 75 after 18 goals and 6 assists in the season played in France. At Lille, they remember the power of the striker: “When he pressed, it seemed as if he was doing it for two or three players.” Some people compare him to Eto’o or Drogba. Others, such as former Chelsea and Napoli striker Gianfranco Zola, compare him to Lukaku. “His physical strength makes him a devastating player.”
Osimhen continues in an extraordinary moment, and each match offers glimpses of an ambition coupled with the gluttony of a player who knows he is in his moment. In Naples, they don’t just do the math for an alirón expected in Italy for 33 years, but to keep dreaming in the Old Continent.
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
