VICTOR Osimhen has admitted that he is hopeful of winning the African Footballer of the Year award, which crowns the continent’s best player annually.
The Nigeria and Napoli striker is the top player from the continent at the moment, following his outstanding form with the Serie A side.
The 24-year-old Super Eagles striker has registered 25 goals and five assists in 29 appearances in all competitions this season to lead Napoli to the verge of their first Serie A title in 33 years and the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals for the first time ever.
The last Nigerian man to be named Africa’s best player was Nwankwo Kanu in 2000, and Osimhen will like to follow in the footsteps of the legend.
“I am not going to lie. It would be my dream to be African Footballer of the Year,” Osimhen told the Daily Mail.
“I was at the ceremony in 2015, when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang won the award. As an African you dream of this prize and maybe I can win.”
Osimhen has often been mentioned alongside Manchester City’s Erling Haaland as two of the best strikers in Europe currently, and the Nigerian revealed that both players share a mutual respect.
“I play with Leo Ostigard at Napoli, who is very good friends with Haaland and plays for Norway with him,” Osimhen explained.
“I am a fan of the Bundesliga so I’ve followed him for a while and every weekend he seems to score two, three, four goals.
“Ostigard spoke to me a lot about him, how hard he trained, then one day he said: ‘If you want, I can bring you his shirt.’ I said: ‘Of course, bro.’
“So he spoke to Haaland, who also asked for my shirt, so we swapped them through Ostigard. He is one of the best of his generation so to be compared with him – and considered one of the best strikers in the world – only inspires me to do more.
“I can score four goals in a game, I can provide more assists, I can do many more things as I have the quality to execute them. I need to work even harder and then at the end of my career I can hopefully look back and say yes, I did some wonderful things.”
While Haaland scored last night as Manchester City beat Bayern Munich 3-0 in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie, Osimhen will miss tonight’s clash between Napoli and AC Milan due to a muscle injury.
