In November 2021, in a head jump, the Inter Milan center-back Skriniar sent Victor Osimhen to the operating room with twenty fractures to his face. His eye popped out of its socket and, over five hours, they reconstructed his face with six plates and 18 titanium screws. “It was as if his head had ended up under a press,” the surgeon who operated on the Nigerian, Gianpaolo Tartaro, told Il Corriere dello Sport. Since he returned, he plays the games with a protective mask that could well be that of a Marvel superhero. The obligation to wear it has ended for a long time, but the player insists: he does not want to take it off at all, it is a symbol of his football and behind it hides a bite in the form of a striker.
No footballer has scored more goals than the Napoli striker in 2023 in the five major leagues (10 goals); In fact, only this season is he surpassed by Manchester City’s Norwegian attacker Erling Haaland (32 goals in all competitions). If the Italian team dominates in Italy and dreams of Europe after their victory in the Champions League round of 16 against Eintracht Frankfurt, it is largely because of this striker born in Lagos 24 years ago and the needs that forced him to work as a child. . “It was the only hope to give my family a decent life,” he confessed to the British newspaper The Independent. Osimhen owns an amazing 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 from street vending. In his free time, the striker rummaged through garbage cans looking for shoes to play soccer. «Sometimes I would find a Nike for my right foot and then I would start looking for the other left foot and I would have Adidas or Reebok; my sister arranged them so I could play,” explains the striker in an interview with The Independent. He played in the streets and ended up at the Synergy Ultimate Straikers football school in Lagos and a call from Emmanuel Amunike, a former Barça player, to go play with the Nigerian team changed his life.
Dreams led Osimhen from poverty to lead his team to the conquest of the Under-17 World Cup (10 goals in seven games) and to be today one of the brightest talents in football. “I play football because I believe that it is the only hope for my family and I to have a decent life,” he said in an interview with the official Napoli media. He has scored 18 goals in Serie A and two in the Champions League, more than 30% of his team’s goals, and has scored seven straight games in the Italian championship, breaking the records of Diego Armando Maradona and Gonzalo Higuaín in the group partenopeo are already history.
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Clubs like Liverpool, Manchester United or Chelsea have set their sights on him and there is talk of figures that exceed 120 million euros. Its rising price has been in line with the soccer progression exhibited. Charleroi bought him for 3.5 million from Wolfsburg, Lille paid Charleroi for 22.4 million after scoring 19 goals in 35 games and Napoli took him to Italy in 2020 for 75 after scoring 18 goals and 6 assists in the season that played in France. At Lille they remember the power of the striker: «When he pressed he seemed to do it for two or three players» Some people compare him with Eto’o or Drogba ». Others, like Gianfranco Zola, former Chelsea and Napoli striker, compare him to Lukaku. “His physical strength of him makes him a devastating player.”
Osimhen continues in an extraordinary moment and each match glimpses an ambition accompanied by a voracity of a player who knows that he is in his moment. In Naples they not only do the math for an alirón expected for 33 years in Italy but to continue dreaming in the Old Continent.