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Victor Osimhen: The Most Famous Nigerian Footballer

Victor Osimhen: The Most Famous Nigerian Footballer

Football is perhaps the most popular sport in the world, with billions of people across the globe rooting not only for their local football teams but their international favourites as well. It is also the most-played sports ever, having almost as many practitioners as it has fans.
Of course, most of them never go professional but prefer seeing the matches on TV while betting on them using the Betway app.
However, for some, football becomes their calling, their career, their means to a better life. Victor Osimhen is one of them.

Childhood in poverty

Victor James Osimhen was born in Lagos in December 1998, the sixth child of the family. His family moved from Edo State to Lagos to escape poverty - but even there, they struggled to make ends meet. This is why young Victor joined her mother in her task of selling sachet water to passers-by from an early age.
Victor was introduced to football at the  Olusosun Primary School, a meeting point for eager youngsters to spend their evenings playing, probably pretending to be players at their favourite team, Chelsea FC. He has proven to be as talented as he was passionate about football, which put him on the radar of the Ultimate Strikers Academy - they invited him to join the team. He was later invited to join the Super Eaglets U17 team for a qualifier for the FIFA U-17 World Cup - the team qualified for the event and ended up winning it. Osimhen scored 10 goals at the event.

Scouted

After his performance at the U-17 World Cup, Osimhen was immediately scouted by several major European teams, reportedly including Tottenham, Arsenal, and Manchester United.
Ultimately, he decided to join the Bundesliga team VfL Wolfsburg in 2017. His first year with the team was not ideal, though, as a shoulder injury sidelined him for a time.
In 2018, he left Germany on loan to Belgian team Charleroi, a contract that the team decided to make final in 2019. His time there was short, though, as he moved on to Lille later in the year. 
After making his Ligue 1 debut, he quickly rose to fame with the team, earning the Player of the Season title.

Moving to Italy

After successfully navigating through Bundesliga, the Belgian Pro League, and Ligue 1 - he reportedly rejected an offer from Manchester United to avoid competing with Odion Ighalo - he ended up at Serie A club Napoli on a transfer reportedly worth N31.27 billion, a record for the Italian club. 
His time there was marked by both success and injury - he only played 11 games with the club since he moved, and scored 3 goals, but he was sidelined with various ailments, including COVID, several times already.
Let’s hope his upcoming year will be much better.
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