Osimhen, the hero of the mask who was looking for sneakers in the trash

In November 2021, Inter Milan central defender Skriniar sent a header Victor Osimhen to the operating room with about twenty facial fractures. His eye popped out of its socket and over the course of five hours his face was reconstructed with six plates and 18 titanium screws. “It was as if his head ended up under a clamp,” said in Il Corriere dello Sport the surgeon who operated on the Nigerian Gianpaolo Tartar.

Since his return, he has been playing games with a protective mask that could be that of a Marvel superhero. The obligation to wear it has long since ceased, 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 than the Napoli striker in 2023 in the five biggest leagues (10 goals); Namely, only this season he was surpassed by the Norwegian striker of Manchester City Erling Haaland (32 goals in all competitions). If the Italian team is dominating Italy and dreaming of Europe after the Champions League Round of 16 victory against Eintracht Frankfurt, it is largely thanks to this striker born in Lagos 24 years ago who was forced to work as a child.

“It was the only hope to give my family a decent life,” he admits in a British newspaper The Independent. Osimhen has an incredible life story. At the age of 6, he lost his mother, and three months later his father lost his job, so he and his seven brothers and sisters they had to live off street sales. In his free time, the attacker rummaged through trash cans in search of football boots. «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; sister arranged them so they could play,” explains the forward in an interview for The Independent. He played on the streets and ended up at the Synergy Ultimate Strikers football school in Lagos, and an invitation from Emmanuel Amunike, a former Barca player, to go and play with the Nigerian team changed his life.

dreams led to Osimhen rose from poverty to lead his team to win the U-17 World Cup (10 goals in seven games) and still be one of the brightest football talents today. I play football because I think it is the only hope for my family and I to have a decent life, he said in an interview with Napoli’s official 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 in seven consecutive Italian league games, breaking Diego Armando Maradona and Gonzalo Higuaín’s group records for the Partenopeo are already history. Clubs such as Liverpool, Manchester United or Chelsea turned their attention to him and we are talking about figures that exceed 120 million euros. His ever-increasing price was in line with the displayed football progress. Charleroi bought him for 3.5 million from Wolfsburg, Lille paid 22.4 million for him to Charleroi 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 he played in France. In Lille, they remember the striker’s strength: “When he pressed, it seemed he was doing it for two or three players.” Some compare him to Eto’o or Drogba.

Others, such as Gianfranco Zola, the former Chelsea and Napoli striker, compare him to Lukaku. “His physical strength makes him a devastating player.” Osimhen continues in an extraordinary moment and every game glimpses the ambition accompanied by the gluttony of a player who knows he is in his moment. In Naples, they are not only counting on the alirón that is expected for 33 years in Italy, but they continue to dream on the Old Continent as well.