The season of Sporting Lisbon’s ‘9’ Viktor Gyökeres (26 years old) is excellent and his great season was rounded off with his hat trick against Manchester City in the Portuguese team’s 4-1 victory on matchday four of the Champions League. The Swede, who has become an idol in Portugal and in his country of origin, has a clause of 100 million euros.
He began his career at Brommapojkarna in his native country and his jump was surprisingly direct to a team in the big five leagues. In the case of Gyökeres, Brighton of the Premier League deposited one million euros when the footballer was only 19 years old.
After two loans, one to the German St Pauli and the other to the Welsh Swansea, which did not go as Brighton expected, the forward was transferred for a little more than the million he had cost to Coventry City, where he triumphed in two seasons in which he scored in total 40 goals and 19 assists. In July 2023, Sporting Lisbon bet on him and added him to their ranks in exchange for 20 million euros.
This season, the striker has scored five goals in four Champions League games and 16 goals in ten domestic competition matches in Portugal, making him the European top scorer and one of the main focuses of interest for the big teams. To put it in context, Gyökeres is the top scorer in 2024 with 45 goals in 45 games, as well as the best in accumulated goals and assists: 61 between the two concepts.
The diagonals of the Sporting de Portugal center forward, who does not shy away from falling to the left wing, were one of the main keys to the Portuguese team’s resounding victory over Manchester City. The striker has a powerful start with the ball and is especially lethal with meters ahead, one of his strengths being his opportunism when unmarking. However, his best quality is his positioning in the area, with which he always manages to be in the right place and correctly time offensive actions.
The Swede has a curious celebration coined when he scores a goal that begins to be replicated by the fans who follow in his footsteps. In it, he simulates a mask by putting both hands on his face, a gesture whose meaning was explained by Gyökeres himself: it refers to the Batman villain in the film ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, the third installment of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy.
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