With Victor Osimhen about to complete a historic season with Napoli and set to be hot property come the next transfer window, there has not been an African striker this good since Samuel Eto'o. Opinion by @OfficialKLM_
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When the Cameroonian won his second successive treble in the 2009/10 season, he cemented his place as the best from the African continent to ever ply their trade in Europe. He had starred in two of the modern generation's most historic club sides while being able to conjure a glittering international career alongside it. Those two seasons with Inter Milan at the San Siro were the last we'd see of Eto'o at his best unfortunately, but while Italy was the beginning of the end for the prolific Indomitable Lion, it seems to be where stardom has begun for Osimhen.
The Lagos native has been one of the best players in world football this season, and has done what no other Napoli star since Diego Maradona has been able to do, and that is help the Neapolitans win the Serie A title. It has not just been his instinctive and accurate finishing that has helped Gli Azzurri end a 33-year wait for a league championship, but his aggression and enthusiasm when he doesn't have the ball has helped Napoli became Italian champions too. His willingness to make runs, attack the ball and press, coupled with his natural ability to find the back of the net, is what has made the Nigeria international such a popular figure in the south of Italy.
While Eto'o was a bit more creative, imaginative and skilful than his fellow west African, the Napoli forward makes up for it with his strength and range of goalscoring. By the time the Douala native was Osimhen's age, he had just won his first LaLiga title with Barcelona, but unlike the Super Eagle, the ex-Real Madrid and Chelsea forward had already won the Africa Cup of Nations twice and been crowned African Player of the Year three times. Nigeria's starman will likely win his first African Player of the Year in 2023 but he still has a long way to go if he is to emulate the former Cameroon captain's accolades.
The 2010s saw a lot of great forwards establish their legend, outside of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, with the likes of Karim Benzema, Luis Suarez, Robert Lewandowski, Gonzalo Higuain, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Edinson Cavani and Radamel Falcao all becoming icons of the game, but during that time there was no African forward who was in that tier of striker, but now it seems the 2022/23 Capocannoniere winner-elect is on course to becoming one of Africa's all-time greats.
Osimhen appears to be hitting his stride at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, but after this triumphant campaign, he will be on the radars of many European juggernauts in the transfer market. The €150 million (R3.1 billion) price tag club president Aurelio de Laurentiis has placed on him will likely deter a lot of suitors, especially given his recent injuries, but it is evident by his track record that every season he is adapting to the competition and scoring more goals for his respective team.
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Not only is Eto'o an African great, he is one of the greatest footballers of all time, and Osimhen has big shoes to fill, but having already broken the Cameroonian's record for most goals by an African in a Serie A season, it seems that it may be possible. Even reaching the heights the 2005/06 Pichichi winner did would be an extraordinary achievement for the ex-Lille and Wolfsburg man, but if there is a forward who can do it, it is definitely Napoli's talisman.
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