Oluwashina Okelejireports
In the summer of 2020, Italian side
Napoli paid a club record fee to sign
striker Victor Osimhen from Lille. The
outlay, which could reach as high as
€81 million, would make the Nigeria
international the most expensive
African player of all time.
It was not always apparent that he
would hit those heights. Certainly not
when his footballing journey began
as a scrawny young boy. At that point
in his life, Osimhen had already lost
his mother, and was adjusting to the
ever-constricting reality of privation
in the Olusosun landfillslum in Lagos,
after his father lost his job. Survival
- by any means necessary – was the
watchword, and while being one of
seven children meant there was a
multiplicity of potential income streams,
hawking in the streets was far from ideal
for a young boy.
In football, he found his escape.
According to Nurudeen Sanni, a
neighbour who became something of a
mentor figure, Osimhen was born to be
a centre-forward.
“I saw the qualities of a striker in him
from the age of four. We nicknamed him
‘Spicy’,” says Sanni, a reference to his
capacity to sizzle and sting. “He was
small, but he could move with the ball
really fast!”
Eventually, football took up more and
more of his time. He began to play for
community-based club Peric FC, which
ground-shared with a local primary
school. There his competitive nature
really came to the fore.
“He has always hated losing,” says
childhood friend Chukwuemeka Nonso.
“Even when he was playing on the local
eye
witness
NIGERIAFrom a Lagos dumpsite to Africa’s
most expensive footballer
field, he would complain a lot if his
other team-mates were playing poorly.
He would verbally confront them
occasionally. Because of that attitude,
he would get punished a lot by his
coach, but that was Victor. He always
put above100 per cent in whatever
he was doing.”
His performances would catch the
eye of the aptly named Ultimate Strikers
Academy. At the academy he worked
with coach Chinedu Ogbenna.
“I saw him as a chap who was
determined to get to whatever it is he
wanted to get to,” Ogbenna recalls. “He
was always keen to seize opportunities
too: once he was in a position of
goalscoring, he rarely missed the target.
“Whenever he remembers his
upbringing, he wants to work harder.
He wasn’t necessarily the best player in
the team, but because of his drive and
determination, he became one of our
most important players.”The extraordinary and unlikely story of Napoli and
Nigeria striker Victor Osimhen, told by the people
who knew him first
Friend and mentor...
Nurudeen Sanni