Super Eagles forward Victor Osimhen is coming off the best year of his career. He won his first African player of the year award in 2023, as well as a Serie A title with Napoli.
Across all competitions, Osimhen was the joint top-scorer amongst all African players in 2023 with 35 goals. This was tied with Togo's Kodjo Fo Doh Laba, and ahead of Egypt's Mohamed Salah (34), Super Eagles' pair Victor Boniface (33) and Gift Orban (32).
But how did Africa's top scorer rank amongst all the players in the World? Portugal and Al Nassr's Cristiano Ronaldo finished as the top scorer in the World with 53 goals, 18 more than Osimhen's total. In fact, Osimhen narrowly missed the top 10, as his tally of 35 goals was just two goals short of 10th-placed Lautaro Martinez (37 goals) in 2023.
However, we would like to point out that the former Wolfsburg player was one of the most efficient players in Europe's top five leagues last year; as he missed fewer big chances than players like Erling Haaland, Robert Lewandowski and Kylian Mbappe.
Although Manchester City's Haaland scored 50 total goals last year, he missed more big chances (35) than any other player in Europe. Likewise, PSG's Kylian Mbappe bagged 52 goals, finishing second on the 2023 scoring charts. However, he missed 27 big chances. Furthermore, Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski missed 30 big chances, despite not being amongst the top 10 scorers in 2023.
Most Big Chances missed in Europe's big five leagues in 2023:
35 – Erling Haaland
34
33
32
31
30 – Robert Lewandowski
29
28
27 – Kylian Mbappé
26 – Folarin Balogun
25
24 – Ollie Watkins
23 – Álvaro Morata, Loïs Openda
22 – Alexander Sørloth
31 – Darwin Núñez, Victor Osimhen,… https://t.co/DbfYwFccQo— Squawka (@Squawka) December 31, 2023
With that being said, it's worth mentioning that Victor Osimhen has been very efficient in front of goal. While the Super Eagles player found the back of the net on 35 occasions last year, he missed just 21 big chances. Osimhen will join the Nigeria Super Eagles for the Africa Cup of Nations, which begins on Saturday 13th January.
This article was most recently revised and updated 1 year ago
