Sporting’s Viktor Gyokeres celebrates after scoring during the UEFA Champions League opening phase soccer match between Sporting and Manchester City in Lisbon, Portugal, Tuesday, November 5, 2024. (AP Photo)
Sporting bought Viktor Gyokeres from Coventry City for around $25 million. And now, a big-money move to one of Europe’s leading teams feels inevitable. The Swedish striker’s explosive goal-scoring has made him one of the hottest properties in Europe and could see him become football’s next $100 million-plus player.
Yet, Premier League clubs seemingly missed his rare talent when it was right under their noses. Instead, Sporting Lisbon took a chance on Gyokeres and now stands to make a fortune after plucking him from the second tier of English football last year.
Since his move to Portugal, he has gone on to score 66 goals in 68 appearances — including 23 goals in 18 this term — and helped Sporting win the title last season.
To put the 26-year-old forward’s club statistics into context, this season he is outscoring Robert Lewandowski (19 in 17 games), Harry Kane (17 in 16) and Erling Haaland (15 in 16). Gyokeres stretches defences with his direct runs and is deadly in front of goal with rasping shots that find the corner of the net with unerring precision.
His impressive numbers have sparked speculation he will soon be on the move again with clubs like Manchester United, City, Arsenal, Barcelona, and Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) all reportedly interested.
Links to United and City are understandable. Gyokeres’ former coach at Lisbon, Ruben Amorim, has just taken over at United. Hugo Viana, Lisbon’s outgoing sporting director who signed him from Coventry City, is on his way to City.
Dalibor Savic coached Gyokeres at the youth level for Brommapojkarna, a Swedish club with a reputation for developing some of the country’s best-emerging players. “He was a late developer because he was not the best striker or the best player in Brommapojkarna at age 16, 17, 18, 19. We had better players in the academy and so on,” Savic, who was head coach of the club’s Under-19 and U-21 teams, told The Associated Press.
Gyokeres’ first chance in England came in 2018 when he joined Brighton — a team that specializes in developing players and then selling them on for huge profit. Not on this occasion. Gyokeres was loaned first to St Pauli in Germany, then Swansea and finally Coventry, where he sealed a permanent move for around $1 million in 2021. His numbers at Brighton and during his loan spells didn’t point to the heights he has gone on to achieve, with seven goals in 28 games for St Pauli his best return.
Gyokeres went on to score 40 goals in 97 games and take Coventry to the brink of promotion to the Premier League before it eventually lost a playoff final. That paved the way for his move to Lisbon where his performances have been impossible to ignore.
Proving he can score consistently at an even higher level will be the next challenge if Gyokeres follows in the footsteps of other top Swedish strikers like Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Henrik Larsson and moves to one of Europe’s leading clubs.
With AP inputs
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
First uploaded on: 16-11-2024 at 23:12 IST
