When you leave the field in the final minutes and your coach, whose name is Luciano Spalletti (and he has dealt with great champions), looks you straight in the eye and gives you an endless applause, then it means that you are doing something truly important. And you are Victor Osimhen, the top scorer in Serie A who dominates the championship with Napoli flying towards the title of top scorer and towards the club’s third scudetto. The greatness of the Nigerian center forward is seen even more when he is visibly annoyed upon returning to the locker room in the 45th minute and during the substitution, because he knows he has had other great opportunities to increase his tally and to put the game in the safe sooner. Not only that, because in the locker room Osi speaks as a leaderreminds everyone that on that field, just ten months earlier, a clamorous defeat materialized despite an initial double advantage.
OSI E DROGBA – Osimhen is this, but he is also that boy who has always had Didier Drogba as an idol from an early age. And the former Chelsea striker wrote to congratulate him these days. A great joy for Victor, who has no intention of stopping. Until some time ago there was talk of an Osimhen-Drogba comparison, but the combination weighed too much and tended to belittle. Today putting them close together is not an exaggeration: numbers in hand the Napoli striker has nothing to envy. At just 24, he is already projecting towards 100 goals for clubs at the end of this season, while Drogba was hovering around 20 goals. From there the explosion, as everyone knows, over 50 goals in two years to become the world-class champion we remember. Osimhen, however, has enormous growth margins and in the meantime breaks every record.
osimhen da record – With the goal against Empoli, Osimhen goes up to 8 consecutive matches in which he scores in the championship. Mind-boggling numbers that lead him to chase the still distant Batistuta, Quagliarella and Cristiano Ronaldo, all three scoring for 11 games in a row. However, he is the second youngest ever in Serie A, after Roberto Muzzi, to reach 8 points. Today in Europe there is only one footballer who travels at his own pace and that is Erling Haaland. Indeed, considering the four main championships, there is the Norwegian who has done better with 27 goals scored in the Premier League and no one else. But the Manchester City phenomenon in these first two months of 2023 has been surpassed by the “Neapolitan”: 6 goals in 9 league games for Haaland, 10 in the same number of challenges for Osimhen. Setting limits isn’t like him and now he’s looking ahead. Now there’s Lazio to face, but with a team that goes at this pace and a pedigree striker who puts them in in every game it is legitimate to dream big, showing that Napoli is among the big names in the Champions League and beyond.
THE MARKET IS CALLING –
Certainly in the summer we will see a real auction for the jewels of Napoli, Osimhen in the lead. But looking at the numbers, the trust and the distance between this team and the others, are we really sure that by moving Osimhen he really takes a step forward in his career? The god of money can do a lot, but Of Lawrence he is a “strong” president from this point of view and dreaming of opening a cycle with the Nigerian and Kvaratskhelia costs nothing. Contrary to what they cost…
