Victor Osimhen ends tense summer in which he was as close to joining his dream club, Chelsea, as he was to bagging a lucrative transfer to the Saudi Pro League with a loan move to Galatasaray.
While the move to Turkiye ostensibly spares Osimhen the indignity of being left out in the cold at parent club, Napoli, the Turkish giants are a massive club in their own right, and the Super Lig boasts not just great history and fandom, but also a strong history of fielding Nigerian players.
Here are the five greatest Nigerian forwards to strut their stuff in Turkey, with varying degrees of success.
Yakubu Aiyegbeni
The prime years of Aiyegbeni's career were played out in England — where he netted nearly a century of Premier League goals — but towards the end, he spent a season in Turkey at Kayserispor.
It was a rather unremarkable spell, however, with the former Blackburn and Portsmouth man scoring just thrice in 17 appearances.
Well past his best, Aiyegbeni did not leave much of a mark on the Super Lig during his time there. With the terms of his Galatasaray deal, Osimhen will be hoping to follow the opposite trajectory come January and fulfill his childhood Premier League dream.
Ahmed Musa
Musa's first taste of Turkish top-flight football came in 2021, when he joined Fatih Karagumruk.
A year later, he left the Yigidors for league rivals Sivasspor. Like Aiyegbeni, however, the Super Eagles skipper and most-capped international arrived at a time when he had fallen far below the peak of his powers.
Musa remained at Sivasspor until earlier this year, and has since remained clubless.
Daniel Amokachi
Relative to some of the other names on this list, Amokachi did not have a very long career in Europe, starting off with Belgium's Club Brugge in 1990 and — following a stint at Everton, one of Yakubu's former clubs — was back on the Nigerian football scene by the end of that decade.
His final stop on the Old Continent was with Istanbul giants Besiktas, for whom he played four years, enjoying domestic success in the Turkish Cup and the Turkish Super Cup, both of which he helped the Black Eagles win.
Victor Moses
Moses did have some good days at Chelsea — notably his role in that 2016/17 title-winning season — but much of his nine years on the Blues’ books was spent on a series of loans.
One of those, commencing in January 2019, was at Fenerbahce in Turkey, on what was initially supposed to be an 18-month stay.
Just a year in, however, the deal was cut short, paving the way for another short-term transfer, to Inter Milan.
Julius Aghahowa
The 2007 winter window saw Julius Aghahowa seal a big move to Wigan Athletic — then of the Premier League — but he failed to make an impression there, departing a year-and-a-half later for Turkey's Kayserispor.
That sojourn was only slightly more fruitful, with Aghahowa — as famous for his goals as for his spectacular somersaults — scoring just six times in 34 games.
