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Super Eagles and Napoli striker Victor Osimhen has been ranked fourth best men’s striker in 2022/23 season in ESPN’s FC 100.
Osimhen was placed fourth in the list for the top 10 strikers category for last season which was posted on ESPN’s Twitter handle on Tuesday.
He topped the likes of Robert Lewandowski (5th), Gabriel Jesus (6th), Alexander Isak (8th) and Dusan Vlahovic (9th).
Manchester City star Erling Haaland was placed at number one, Karim Benzema at number two while Harry Kane was third.
On why Osimhen made the list, ESPN wrote:”Osimhen is elite at basically two things: finding space in the box and taking lots of shots. Last we checked, those are pretty important things.
“He wasn’t a huge link-up guy for Napoli in 2022-23, he was decent-at-best from both pressing and passing perspectives. (He’s shown potential in these regards in previous seasons, though.) But Napoli had guys for that. What they needed from Osimhen was shooting, and he has become one of the world’s best at that.
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“He led Serie A in shots (135), goals (26), expected goals (21.6), unblocked shots (105), shots on goal (55), shots in the box (98) and touches in the opponent’s box (245). At 6-foot-1, 171 pounds, he isn’t the most physically imposing forward in the world, but he doesn’t have to be. He’s fast, he’s strong and he’s a marvelous interpreter of space.”
Osimhen was instrumental for Napoli who became Serie A champions for the first time since 1990.
He scored 26 goals in the Italian topflight to become top scorer, the first African to achieve the feat.
Also, he is the top scorer in the 2023 AFCON qualifiers with seven goals.
Meanwhile, other top 10 categories for the ESPN FC 100 are goalkeeper, right-back, centre-back, left-back, central midfield, attacking midfielder, winger, forward and manager.
5 Comments
I said it the other day that Osimhen did enough to be a Ballon D’or nominee. This list shows it. The top 4 on the list plus Messi could easily be the 5 top nominees. At a minimum, he should be in the top 10. If he’s not, we need to find out what brand of weed the organizers are smoking.
As for APOY, although winning the champions league counts big for Mahrez, Osimhen should still nick it this year.
Why is Kane rated higher than Osimhen? Importance of goals should have been considered. First two won respective leagues in England and Spain. Winning the league in Italy is a big achievement.
Osihmen is world best striker. Oyibo knows that but they won’t admit cos he is black
Aside Haaland I don’t see who should be ahead of Osimhen, maybe lewa is contestable but not Kane or Benzema.
This ranking is rubbish. I see racism at play here. Only Haaland is ahead of Osimhen on that list.