Discovering future soccer stars and reselling them at a high price – Bundesliga club VfL Wolfsburg is actually quite good at this business. Kevin De Bruyne or Edin Dzeko (both to Manchester City) are the best proof of that. However, today’s Champions League evening reminds Wolfsburg that they have also made one of the most expensive misjudgments in European football history.
That is when SSC Naples and their top striker Victor Osimhen play at Eintracht Frankfurt (from 9 p.m. in the NDR Live Center). With 18 goals in 19 games, the 24-year-old is the top scorer in Italy’s Serie A. The first championship since the great days with Diego Maradona can hardly be taken away from his club: the lead over Inter Milan is currently 15 points.
For the time after this season, Napoli is therefore counting on offers from Manchester United or Chelsea FC for Osimhen. Club president Aurelio De Laurentiis has already made a clear statement in this case: He only listens from 100 million euros.
Osimhen at the age of 18 to VfL Wolfsburg
What does all this have to do with VfL Wolfsburg? The Bundesliga club brought the striker to Europe in January 2017 at the age of just 18. Osimhen had previously become a junior world champion with Nigeria’s under-17 national team. But it quickly became clear that it was the worst possible time to move to Wolfsburg.
Because VfL sank into sporting chaos at the time. In 2017 and 2018, the club only saved itself from relegation in the relegation. In just a year and a half at VfL, Osimhen worked with four different coaches. He also injured his knee, calf and shoulder.
In the jersey of VfL Wolfsburg, Victor Osimhen hardly achieved anything.
In the summer vacation of 2018, there was also a malaria infection. “When I came here, he ran in circles and he also hobbled,” former sports director Jörg Schmadtke told the “kicker” in January. “The statement I got at the club at the time was: We don’t have a striker. The ones we have are useless.”
Osimhen’s record with the “Wolves”: no goal, no assist in 16 competitive games, only three times in the starting XI. So the then new VfL Sport Managing Director reacted and later confessed: “In hindsight, of course, it wasn’t a good move.”
Schmadtke: “In retrospect, not a good move”
Because when the striker left Lower Saxony after only 14 Bundesliga appearances, a development began that nobody in Wolfsburg would have believed him capable of.
VfL loaned Osimhen to RSC Charleroi and gave the Belgian club an option to buy for just €3.5m. The Belgians took notice after a year and immediately sold it on to OSC Lille in France for around 22 million. Only twelve months later he went to Naples – for a transfer fee of around 70 million plus ten million in bonuses.
Osimhen: “The weather, the language, the food…”
Osimhen once said of his time in Wolfsburg on “Sport1”: “The weather, the language, the food. It was my first time in Europe, I was only 18 years old and didn’t have enough time to acclimatize.” He now feels much more comfortable in Naples. “Maradona is the greatest footballer of all time. Stepping onto the field where he made history was incredible for me,” he said before leaving for Frankfurt. “I don’t think there is a better feeling.”
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NDR 2 Sports | 02/21/2023 | 11:03 p.m
