Just a few years ago, Viktor Gyökeres was playing in the 2nd Bundesliga. Now the top European clubs are chasing the striker – apparently including FC Bayern.
The list of Europe’s top scorers is long and full of high-profile names. Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah leads the rankings in England with 18 goals this season, closely followed by the dominator of previous years, Manchester City’s Erling Haaland (16 goals). In Spain, meanwhile, ex-Bayern star Robert Lewandowski is at the top with 16 goals for FC Barcelona, and in the Bundesliga it looks like Harry Kane (currently 15 goals this season) will do so again in his second season in Germany Grab the top scorer, although Frankfurt’s Omar Marmoush currently only has one less goal to his name than the Englishman.
However, looking at the continent’s top leagues probably doesn’t answer the question of which top scorer is currently Europe’s most dangerous. The statistics for Viktor Gyökeres, who plays for the current leaders Sporting in Portugal, are currently too good.
| 1 | Harry KaneBavaria | 14 | 1.07 | 6 | 15 | ||
| 2 | Omar MarmoushFrankfurt | 16 | 0.87 | 2 | 14 | ||
| 3 | Jonathan BurkardtMainz | 15 | 0.8 | 1 | 12 | ||
| 4 | Patrick SchickLeverkusen | 13 | 0.84 | 0 | 11 | ||
| 5 | Tim KleindienstGladbach | 16 | 0.56 | 1 | 9 |
The Swede is alone in the league this season with 21 goals after 17 games played. Across all competitions, Gyökeres has scored 32 goals in 30 games and also contributed six assists. So it’s no wonder that Europe’s top clubs now have the 26-year-old on their list – including Bayern. What’s exciting is that Gyökeres is not even an unknown entity in Germany. Because he was already playing in the 2nd Bundesliga.
A year at St. Pauli – goal machine in England
In 2019, it was today’s Bundesliga club and then second division club FC St. Pauli who loaned the attacker from English Premier League club Brighton & Hove Albion for a year. Gyökeres was a “young, talented player,” said sports director Andreas Bornemann at the time about the new signing, who was able to present at least some of his offensive qualities in Hamburg. In 26 league games he scored seven goals and four assists.
Gyökere’s market value was 500,000 euros when he moved to FC St. Pauli and 800,000 when he left a year later. And now? Now it has grown to a sum in the high double-digit millions. The portal “transfermarkt.de” estimates the market value of the goal getter at an incredible 75 million euros. But how could it come to this?
In 2020, Brighton initially loaned Gyökeres to Championship club Swansea City. There he only scored one goal in twelve competitive games. Brighton recalled Gyökeres in January 2021 – and loaned him out directly to Swansea rivals Coventry. A stroke of luck for the loan club, but also for the striker himself.
Although Gyökeres only had three league goals on his resume at the end of the second half of the 2020/2021 season for his new employer, he made his breakthrough in the following season. He really blossomed under coach Mark Robins, contributing 17 goals in his first full season in Coventry and 21 goals in his second, and played a key role in his club almost being promoted to the Premier League. The result: Sporting steered Gyökeres to Portugal and paid 24 million euros to Coventry – the start of the next chapter of the success story.
In Lisbon, Gyökeres continued exactly where he left off in Coventry from summer 2023. He played 50 competitive games in his first season with his new employer. In the end, the attacker had 58 scorer points (43 goals, 15 assists). A top value that was obviously not a coincidence, as the 32 goals in the current season show.
Particularly impressive: Gyökeres scored three times this season. One of them in the Champions League in the surprising 4-1 win against Manchester City at the beginning of November. Gyökeres had even scored four goals in one game against Estrela Amadora in the league a few days earlier. A feat that he would also succeed in the national team a few weeks later.