Join The Club
Nigeria and Galatasaray centre-forward Victor Osimhen was dealt a rough hand in life.
Born into a family of seven children, the Osimhen clan lost their mother when Victor was a toddler. He doesn't have any standout memories of her, and the remainder of his childhood was split between school and kerbside entrepreneurship.
Victor Osimhen: 'I used to sell water on the street to provide for my family'
Osimhen, his friends and siblings would sift through the rubbish to find football boots, otherwise he would play barefoot.
After school, and sometimes instead of education, Osimhen would dart between cars stopped at red lights in the suffocating Lagos traffic, selling bottled water at 10 cents a pop. He graduated to selling Bibles by the roadside and even dabbled in email marketing for his local church as well as well-digging. There was nothing he wouldn't turn his hand to in order to raise what little money he could earn to help provide for his family.
Forced to grow up at a younger age than children in the developed world, Osimhen turned his back on the beautiful game for a time, to focus on providing for his father, brothers and sisters - they all chipped in.
That was until Osimhen learned of Nigeria try-outs in Lagos, hitch-hiking to the stadium where hundreds of teenagers vied for formal trial. Following a series of try-outs, the pool of potential youngsters was whittled down to 30, then 27, but Osimhen didn't make the final cut.
He wasn't giving up that easily, however, and after enlisting the help of a neighbourhood agent, travelled nine hours to Abuja to pursue his dream of being a footballer. After scoring two in a 15-minute spell, Osimhen felt he had perhaps done enough to be noticed, but again his hopes were dashed. Everything he had sacrificed, the time spent in Abuja when he could have been earning for his family was for nothing, or so he thought.
"There must have been 900 kids waiting outside this stadium. The first day, I didn’t even get on the pitch. The second day, one of the coaches finally pointed at me," Osimhen writes in a new article for The Players' Tribune. “'Green shirt. Let’s go. You have 15 minutes.'”
"Just 15 minutes to change my life. I knew that the only way to impress them was to run. So I ran until I was sweating blood. I ended up scoring 2 goals in 15 minutes. I thought that maybe I had a chance. But then the coaches got on a microphone, and they addressed the crowd. They called out some names, and I did not hear my name. Everybody started walking to the parking lot.
"My dream was dead. I was just about to get in the car when I heard people shouting. 'Hey! Hey! The guy in green!' I turned around, and some kids were waving to me. I pointed to my chest, like in the movies. 'Me?' Lucky green.
"I ran back over to them, and they said, 'Hey, the coach wants to see you. The team doctor told him you were the guy who scored two goals. Are you the guy?' I said, 'I’m the guy!!! I’M THE GUY!!!!'
"I went back into the stadium and the doctor was pointing at me and holding up two fingers. He said, 'That’s the kid.' Two fingers saved me. If the team doctor didn’t do that, I would not be a footballer today. I would probably be at the bottom of a well."
Osimhen went on to be selected for Nigeria's Under-17 World Cup squad, where he scored 10 goals in seven games en route to lifting the trophy and announcing himself to the world's biggest clubs.
Bundesliga side VfL Wolfsburg took a punt on the Nigerian teenager who didn't catch fire in Germany and after a bout of malaria, almost missed out on a loan move to Belgium, where he began to make top teams sit up and take note.
A loan stint with Charleroi brought about a move to Lille in France, followed by a 2020 transfer to Napoli, with whom he would go on to win the Scudetto first the first time in 33 years. Osimhen scored the title-clinching goal, writing his name into Italian football history.
After suffering through the loss of his father, unable to be by his bedside when he passed away, Osimhen credits the love and support of Neapolitans for helping rediscover himself.
"When I left Lille, I was lost. When I came to Napoli, I was found. I really have to thank the city and the fans and my teammates for turning my life around. I remember the first meeting I had when I arrived, I told the coach, Mr. Spalletti, 'I am not well. I am very angry right now. Very sad. My head is not straight.'
"But he was like a father to me. When I wasn’t doing something right, he came for my neck. But he believed in me deep in his soul, I swear. He thought I could be the best in the world."
After victory with Napoli, Osimhen made the left-field decision to join Turkish giants Galatasaray, a transfer former agents and advisors warned against - but Osimhen's outlook on life has been irrevocably marked by his father's death.
"I wanted to play for Galatasaray. How can I go from the emotion of Napoli to just any club? Impossible. Boring.
"I wanted to go to a top 3 club in the world in terms of passion. Those are the kind of people who really understand me. The ones who live football in a different way.
"Before stepping on the plane to Turkey, I put everything in the hands of God. When the flight landed, there were 3,000 Gala fans waiting for me in the middle of the night. At a private airport. They were tracking my flight! The people welcomed me with open arms. That feeling is worth more than money."
Galatasaray recently booked their place in the last 16 of the 2025/26 season's Champions League, with victory over Juventus - Osimhen again scoring the decisive goal in the tie. It is the first time Galatasaray have made it this far in the competition since 2014 and will face Liverpool or Tottenham Hotspur in the next round.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
