Victor Osimhen was Napoli’s talisman in the 2022-23 season as they won their first Serie A title in 33 years. Their success made him one of the most coveted strikers in Europe.
So how did he end up on loan in, with respect, the Turkish league just a year later?
It goes against what Osimhen himself expected from the summer 2024 window. In January, he told CBS Sports Golazo that he was ready to take the “next step” of his career. Instead, he made a left-field move, going from one of Europe’s top five leagues to Istanbul’s Galatasaray.
The move isn’t even a big-money permanent transfer, with the 25-year-old making a season-long loan switch to join the likes of Hakim Ziyech, Lucas Torreira and Davinson Sanchez at reigning Super League champions Galatasaray. While long-time Crystal Palace hero Wilfried Zaha has left the club on a season-long loan to France’s Lyon, Osimhen is set to play alongside. former Napoli teammate Dries Mertens, the Italian side’s all-time top scorer.
Turkey is ranked 10th in the UEFA country coefficientsposition based on how the association clubs (league) perform across the three European competitions, behind not only the big five of England (Premier League), Italy, Spain (La Liga), Germany (Bundesliga) and France (Ligue 1), but also the main divisions in the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium and the Czech Republic.
And Galatasaray won’t even compete in Europe’s top club competition this season. They lost to Swiss champions Young Boys in the Champions League qualifying finals, so will take part in the Europa League instead. Osimhen’s loan side will face the likes of Ajax and Tottenham Hotspur in the league stage of UEFA’s second tier tournament.
Osimhen won Serie A during the 2022-23 season (Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images)
It feels like a harsh send-off for Osimhen, who scored 26 goals in 32 games in that 2022-23 title-winning season. Only four players across Europe have been more prolific – and it was no surprise to see him win African Footballer of the Year 2023.
So how did he end up at Galatasaray? How good is the Nigeria international, really? And what happened in his crazy summer?
What happened to Osimhen across the summer window?
To tell the story of Victor Osimhen’s summer, you have to go back to the beginning of the previous season.
Osimhen became the only African player to be crowned Capocannoniere (top scorer) in Serie A, with those 26 league goals in 2022–23, efforts that saw him finish eighth in the Ballon d’Or voting.
But his newfound reputation came with history. His brilliant campaign when Napoli won the league followed inconsistent seasons. Before that 26-goal haul, he had recorded 10 and 14 non-penalty goals in the previous two Serie A seasons respectively. He also averaged just 22 starts per year.
His form also dipped after the title win. Napoli had three different managers last season, making the worst title defense in the history of Serie A. His agent considered legal action against the club when some TikTok posts on the Napoli account mocked his client in a racist manner. Bridges were rebuilt and Osimhen signed a new contract before Christmas, increasing his salary and extending his stay until 2026.
But injuries, suspensions, the open disagreement he showed Rudi Garcia, Napoli’s first manager last season, and Nigeria head coach Finidi George (in an explosive Instagram Live), and his long participation in the Africa Cup of Nations in January and February interrupted his. season and decreased its value.
Ahead of the end of his 12-penalty-goal season for Napoli, interested parties wondered whether even matching what the Italians paid French club Lille for him, in a controversial summer 2020 deal that led to investigations by prosecutors in Naples and Rome, was even worth it it
Even so, staying at Napoli was not an option. Just a month after that December contract renewal, Osimhen revealed that he had decided on his next step. “We already knew this last summer,” Napoli owner Aurelio De Laurentiis said. “The renewal negotiations would not have been so long otherwise. We already knew he would go to Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) or the Premier League.”
The Nigerian spent the summer working on his own at Napoli’s training camp in Castel Volturno. As he did so, Napoli signed €150m (£126m, $166m) from players, including Chelsea’s Belgium international striker Romelu Lukaku.
In the background, Paris Saint-Germain was weighing a move. Like The AthleticsDavid Ornstein and Peter Rutzler reported in February that Osimhen was on their transfer shortlist after French forward Kylian Mbappe made it clear he would leave as a free agent this summer.
Lukaku came on to replace Osimhen (Francesco Pecoraro/Getty Images)
By the end of August however, Ornstein reported that PSG had decided not to address the situation.
Saudi Arabian side Al Ahli were also interested, but Roberto Calenda, Osimhen’s agent, explained in his response to negotiations with that club how he viewed Osimhen’s future.
“Osimhen is a Napoli player, with a contract recently renewed to our mutual satisfaction,” he posted on X. “He made history with Napoli and when there were important offers (including this year) we always accepted the club’s decisions. Like me already said, he is not a package to be sent far to make room for new prophets. Victor was elected African Footballer of the Year, he still has a lot to say in Europe. We need respect and balance.”
“We thought we had closed a deal,” Napoli sporting director Giovanni Manna said. “But it hit.” Al Ahli held parallel negotiations with Brentford for their England striker Ivan Toney, and signed him instead.
Chelsea then pursued a deal until the end of the window for English clubs last Friday. The AthleticsSimon Johnson and Liam Twomey reported that Chelsea were pushing for the deal in the final weeks of the window. The west Londoners have explored up to seven different payment deal structures for the player without success. Osimhen wanted to come, but he also wanted what he viewed as a fairly lucrative offer. That was outside the parameters at which the Premier League club operates. Chelsea also did not get far in formalizing an agreement with Napoli, due to the situation on personal terms.
The window then closed for most major European leagues. Turkey was one of the only countries to which Osimhen, who will not play for Napoli this campaign, could yet move.
He has now joined Galatasaray.
Why did Osimhen join Galatasaray?
Osimhen is no stranger to playing in Europe. He had periods with clubs in Germany (Wolfsburg), Belgium (Charleroi), France and Italy, before this move to Istanbul.
The quality of football in the Turkish league, compared to many other European top divisions, is questionable, but Osimhen received a hero’s welcome when he arrived to conclude negotiations.
What a welcome for Victor Osimhen as he arrives in Turkey ahead of his loan move to Galatasaray! 🥳 pic.twitter.com/bXJmTNSvYP
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) 3 September 2024
His idol, former Ivory Coast and Chelsea striker Didier Drogba, spent a season at Galatasaray in 2013-14, although he was nine years older at the time than Osimhen is now.
With Osimhen frozen out of Napoli’s plans, Galatasaray saw an opportunity to land a top-quality striker still in his prime. They could also offer him European football – albeit in the Europa League rather than the Champions League after failing to beat Switzerland’s Young Boys in that final.
It happened that Galatasaray striker Mauro Icardi suffered a back injury the week before they moved for Osimhen, in the team’s opening league fixture of the season. This will keep him out for several weeks.
The Super Lig side also had longer to get the deal done than other clubs across Europe who pursued Osimhen in the final days and hours of his window. Turkey’s transfer window has a later deadline of September 18.
This is an important commitment for Galatasaray. They will pay Osimhen €6m (£5.1m; $6.7m) in wages for the rest of the season – with Napoli covering his wages for July and August. However, they will not have to give the Serie A side a loan fee. And it’s still less than they pay Icardi, which is around €10 million per season. Galatasaray also offloaded one of their higher earners, Zaha, on loan to Lyon earlier this summer.
that of Osimhen biggest problem in the past was availability. He has played more than 27 league games in a season just once in his career and also scored 20 or more league goals just once – both in Serie A in 2022-23.
The Nigerian took advantage of the 2022 World Cup break that season (for which his country did not qualify), scoring 17 of his 26 league goals in 21 matches following the tournament in November and December. He scored eight times in his 12 league appearances after the turn of the year last season, having managed nine of 16 games in 2021-22.
The drop in Osimhen’s output since 2022-23 can be attributed to both player and system issues. His shots per 90 minutes in Serie A fell to 3.9 (from 4.6), and his non-penalty expected goals (npxG) per 90 dropped to 0.5 from 0.7, while his npxG overefficiency of 0.18 per 90 slipped to a more sustainable 0.03.
A comparison of his hits from data firm smarterscout, which gives players’ games a series of ratings from zero to 99 in various metrics, from the past two seasons reflects those statistics. But it also indicates that he has suffered a drop in aspects such as link play, defensive intensity and ball retention. The mid-season Africa Cup of Nations in January and February this year and nagging fitness issues were also factors.
Osimhen’s struggles last season were not his alone. Losing manager Luciano Spalletti, renowned for making good strikers great, to a sabbatical was a major blow. Napoli’s title-winning campaign was built as much on attack (with a league-best 77 goals scored) as on defense (only 28 goals conceded). Selling centre-back Kim Min-jae to Bayern Munich last summer also hurt them.
In attack, the Serie A defenses found a switch for the electric Khvicha Kvaratskhelia last season, causing a drop in the engagements on goal (from 25 in 2022-23 to 19). Kvaratskhelia continued to be one of Napoli’s best players but was made to work much harder during the campaign, scoring just once in his final eight league games.
In midfield, Andre-Frank Anguissa wasn’t the same two-way force he was the previous season, playing 300 fewer minutes in the league and registering just two assists and no goals (down from three goals and five assists in 2022-23).
Osimhen is a prototypical center forward in many ways. He is a high-volume shooter, a skilled presser, and an aerial threat with speed to burn and the ability to effectively lead a press. However, last season was a clearer reflection of him as a player than 2022-23 was.
He has yet to fully break out of the “on his day” and “lethal when fit” bubbles we’ve seen all too often in football.
Anantajith Raghuraman
(Top photo: Islam Yakut/Anadolu via Getty Images)
