Victor Osimhen: Super Eagles striker wins UCL man of the match against Juventus

When it mattered most, when the tie was slipping away and the nightmare was becoming real, Nigeria’s Victor Osimhen did what Victor Osimhen does. He scored.

The Super Eagles striker has been named UEFA Player of the Match after delivering the decisive contribution in one of this season's most extraordinary Champions League nights.

Galatasaray survived a Juventus comeback of extraordinary determination to advance to the Round of 16, winning on aggregate after extra time and at the centre of everything, as he so often is, was the King of Istanbul.

The UEFA Technical Observer Group delivered their verdict without hesitation. "He played the decisive role for Galatasaray to qualify for the next round. In a match fully dominated by Juventus, Osimhen kept his focus and determination to score with his second chance of the match."

Focus and determination. Two words that have defined this man's entire career.

Nobody who watched Wednesday night in Turin will forget it quickly. Galatasaray arrived at the Juventus Stadium with a three-goal cushion and every reason to expect a controlled, professional passage. What they got was something else entirely.

Juventus, down to ten men and facing a mountain, produced a comeback that bordered on superhuman. Spalletti's side clawed back three goals to level the tie at 5-5 on aggregate, fed by a cauldron of noise from their supporters and driven by the kind of desperate collective energy that makes the Champions League the greatest competition in club football.

With less than 45 minutes of normal time remaining, Galatasaray were two goals down on the night, level on aggregate, staring at one of the most dramatic exits in recent Champions League history. The tie was perfectly balanced. The momentum was entirely with Juventus. The outcome was genuinely impossible to predict.

Then extra time arrived. And the chaos found its resolution.

Through all of it, the pressure, the noise, the mounting deficit, the growing sense that something historic and horrible was about to happen, Osimhen never lost his composure.

Five shots on target. One key pass. One chance created. Four recoveries. Two headed clearances. Three clearances. Five duels won.

An 83% passing accuracy in the middle of a storm that swallowed teammates and opponents alike.

These are not the numbers of a player rattled by the occasion. They are the numbers of a man who had been in this position before, not literally, but mentally.

A player who grew up on the streets of Olusosun, who clawed his way through injury and doubt and rejection to reach the summit of European football, does not crumble because Juventus scored three goals in Turin.

He waits. He focuses. He scores when it matters.

Baris Alper Yilmaz provided the assist. Osimhen provided the finish. The stadium fell silent. Galatasaray breathed again. Yilmaz added a second to seal it, and the most dramatic night of Galatasaray's recent European history was complete.

The full circle of this story is almost too neat to be real. The anger after the 5-2 first leg victory. The demands for more goals. The teammates who thought he was overreacting.

The near-collapse in Turin that proved every instinct correct. And finally, the extra-time goal that saved everything, scored by the same man who saw the danger before anyone else did.

Osimhen was furious after winning 5-2. He was the hero after almost losing 3-0. Round of 16. Historic qualification. Player of the Match. Vindicated in the most complete way possible.

For Juventus, as the post-match verdict noted, football was cruel on Wednesday night. They gave everything, fought with ten men, and produced one of the competition's great comebacks, only to be undone in extra time by a player who simply refuses to lose.

For Galatasaray, for Nigeria, and for everyone who has followed this extraordinary story from Olusosun to Istanbul to Turin, savour this one. Osimhen has earned it.