Osimhen Has Climbed Galatasaray's All-Time Foreign Scorer List
Istanbul · Sunday 23 August 2026
Victor Osimhen has moved up Galatasaray's all-time list of foreign goalscorers. In a month dominated by transfer stories that keep failing to happen, this is the one that describes an event.
The context that makes it significant
Galatasaray are one of the largest clubs in Turkey and have been importing forwards for decades. A foreign scorers list at a club like that is long, and it contains players who spent five or six seasons there. Osimhen has been in Istanbul for a fraction of that time.
His record since arriving stands at 59 goals in 74 appearances, a shade under 0.8 a game. Sustaining that rate is how you climb a list built by players who had far longer to do it.
Why it also explains the transfer story
This is the answer to everybody asking why Galatasaray refused EUR130 million from Al-Hilal, then refused EUR150 million with a EUR50 million annual salary attached for the player.
Clubs do not turn down the largest fee ever offered for an African footballer because of sentiment. They do it because the player is producing at a rate that cannot be replaced with the proceeds. President Dursun Ozbek's position, that Osimhen is not for sale at any price this summer, reads differently once you look at the scoring rate rather than the fee.
The refusal and the goal record are the same fact stated two different ways.
For Nigeria
The Super Eagles are not at the World Cup and the next competitive tournament is AFCON. A striker in that window arriving off a season of European football at this rate is worth more to a national side than the same striker arriving off two seasons in a league nobody scouts.
Barcelona have also been linked, with Deco reportedly unwilling to give up on the pursuit. That will go the same way as the Arsenal version unless Galatasaray change a position they have stated twice, in public, without qualification.
Reporting: Afrik-Foot, Complete Sports, Turkish Football and Soccernet NG.
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