The Moment That Changed the Debate
Football is a simple game. 22 players run around a pitch for 90 minutes, and in the end, Viktor Gyökeres always scores.
Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Gyökeres left his homeland in 2018 and joined English side Brighton & Hove Albion, where he didn’t make a single first-team appearance. He bounced around on loan from the German and English lower leagues with St. Pauli, Swansea City, and Coventry City before eventually making the move to Lisbon in July 2023. Sporting CP paid a club-record transfer fee of €20 million (plus €4 million in bonuses) for him and established his release clause at €100 million, with Coventry set to earn 10-15% from a future transfer.
It didn’t take long for Gyökeres to pay off their investment, scoring twice on his debut vs. Vizela and immediately taking Portuguese football by storm. The bulky center forward emerged as an indispensable cog under Rúben Amorim, leading the charge in attack alongside Francisco Trincão and Pedro Gonçalves and spurring them to their first championship in three years. Having finished fourth in the table the previous season, Sporting would reclaim the league title and finish 10 points clear of the rest.
One Step Above the Rest
Thanks in large part to Gyökeres’ instant impact, Sporting went from scoring 71 goals in 2022/23 to 96 goals in 2023/24. Gyökeres claimed the Bola da Prata award by finishing atop the Liga Portugal scoring charts with 29 goals and was also named the best player of the league season. In total, he racked up 47 goals and 11 assists in all competitions.
He has continued his meteoric development and even showcased his stellar form on the European stage by scoring a hat-trick vs. Manchester City. And whilst Sporting lost some momentum following Amorim’s mid-season departure to Manchester United, they have nevertheless stabilized thanks to their Swedish attacking talisman. Gyökeres has scored a barely believable 47 goals and 11 assists in 46 appearances, including 12 goals and 2 assists since the start of March.
Viktor Gyokeres (Photo by Gualter Fatia/Getty Images)
Let’s put Gyökeres’ brilliance in perspective: with just a couple of weeks remaining in the campaign, there have been 12 times this season where a Liga Portugal player has scored three or more goals. Gyökeres is the sole player who has done it on multiple occasions, with his hat-trick vs. Moreirense on Friday being the fourth occasion where he found the back of the net at least three times. He has fired in 34 league goals, more than twice as many as the second-best scorer in the Primeira, Samu Aghehowa (16).
He is on a different wavelength from any other player in Portugal right now, and it’s why Sporting are poised to not only reach the Taça de Portugal Final, but become the first Portuguese team in nine years to win back-to-back league titles. With just four matches remaining, Sporting sit level on 72 points with Benfica but retain the top spot thanks to their superior goal differential (+53) to Benfica (+49). After traveling to Rio Ave on Tuesday for the second leg of the Taça semifinal, where they will be looking to defend their 2-0 advantage, Sporting will be facing off against last-placed Boavista and relegation-threatened Gil Vicente before taking on Benfica and Vitória. They cannot afford any more slip-ups with Benfica breathing down on their necks with six wins from their last seven matches.
Comparisons With Other Big-Money Signings From Portugal?
If there’s one thing that is holding Gyökeres back from securing a big-money move, it’s perhaps buyer’s remorse from previous signings. From Darwin Núñez to Jackson Martínez to Carlos Vinícius, we’ve seen quite a few strikers score for fun in Portugal, only to run into a wall when they earn a lucrative move to Europe’s top five leagues.
Gonçalo Ramos, for example, has struggled to cement a starting spot at Paris Saint-Germain since joining from Benfica for €65 million in 2023. If we compare Gyökeres’ current numbers, we can see that he is averaging more key passes per game (1.9 vs. 0.6) than Ramos was in 2022/23 as well as more successful dribbles per game (1.9 vs. 0.6), which suggests that he isn’t just a mere poacher – he can also wreak havoc outside the box as a playmaker.
Darwin Núñez has looked like a fish out of water since leaving Benfica for Liverpool for €75 million in 2022. However, there are quite a few differences between him and Gyökeres. For one, Darwin struggled in his first season at Benfica with just 6 goals and 10 assists in the league before enjoying a supersonic improvement in 2021/22. Gyökeres meanwhile has delivered in both of his campaigns, suggesting he’s far from a one-season wonder. Let’s compare his 2024/25 campaign to Darwin’s 2021/22 breakout season. We can see that Gyökeres is far more accurate in possession (74.1% passes completed vs. 67.1%), whilst he’s also significantly better at drawing fouls (2.4 per game vs. 1).
André Silva failed to convince after swapping Porto for Milan in 2017 at the tune of €38 million and imminently departed Italy. However, in comparison to Silva, Gyökeres did a far better job of progressing the ball via his dribbles (1.9 vs. 0.7) and key passes (1.9 vs. 1.2). He is far harder to dispossess (1.7 vs. 2.2), and due to his ball control and physicality, he will force opponents into fouling him in order to stop his flow (2.4 vs. 1.4). Furthermore, he is much better at consistently testing the goalkeeper, racking up 4.1 shots per game in comparison to Silva’s 3 from 2016/17.
Viktor Gyokeres (Photo by Gualter Fatia/Getty Images)
Ready for a Big Move
Gyökeres leads the league in goal contributions with 40 – twice as many as second-placed Vangelis Pavlidis – whilst he also sits atop the charts for Expected Goals (26.57), scoring frequency (a goal per 72 minutes), shots per game (4.1), shots on target per game (2.3), and penalties won (4). He’s also missed a league-high 20 big chances, which signifies that he has even more room to improve his finishing, whilst he’s also converted each of his 12 penalty attempts in the league this season.
At 26 years of age, Viktor Gyökeres has marked himself as not just the best striker in Portugal, but arguably the best in European football. No player on the continent has scored more goals than the Swedish striker with 34 league goals, well ahead of second-placed Mohamed Salah (27), and whilst he still has three years left on his contract, there’s reason to believe that Gyökeres is entering his final weeks in Lisbon with Premier League sides Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Arsenal actively looking to sign a new striker. He’ll be looking to ride off into the sunset and leave Sporting with a domestic double and their first successful title defense in 71 years.
