Super Eagles star Osimhen ranked 11th fastest forward, but behind Luis Suarez

When the latest CIES Football Observatory speed rankings dropped, Victor Osimhen's name appeared as the 11th fastest centre forward currently competing in the UEFA Champions League.

Osimhen clocked a blistering 33.45 km/h. Impressive. Elite. Exactly what you would expect from the Super Eagles talisman.

But sitting four places above him at number seven, with a top speed of 33.92 km/h, is Luis Suarez. Not that one. Put the shock away.

This is Suarez, the Colombian forward, currently lighting up Sporting Lisbon's attack, younger, faster, and for now, just slightly quicker than Nigeria's King of Istanbul. The name will fool you. The player is very real.

Osimhen's inclusion in this list should surprise nobody. The 27-year-old has built his entire game around the kind of physical profile that makes defenders lose sleep. 

Explosive acceleration, relentless pressing, and the ability to turn a half-chance into a catastrophe for any backline unfortunate enough to face him.

The CIES data, which uses exclusive Gradient tracking to measure maximum running speeds across Champions League matches, places Osimhen firmly among the elite. 

Kylian Mbappe leads all centre forwards with a top speed of 35.67 km/h, followed by Lois Openda at 35.16 km/h and Hugo Ekitike at 34.91 km/h. These are numbers that belong to a different conversation about human speed limits.

At 33.45 km/h, Osimhen is not far behind. And raw pace, as the data also reveals, is only part of his story.

Here is where the report gets genuinely fascinating. Beyond the sprint numbers, CIES also tracked how players distribute their movement across different speed thresholds and what they found about Osimhen tells you everything about why he is so difficult to contain.

The Nigerian ranked second in the entire Champions League for distance covered at speeds below 7 km/h, essentially walking or slow jogging, accounting for 41.9% of his total movement during matches. 

At first glance, that sounds like a criticism. It is the opposite. Mbappe leads this category at 43.5%. The Colombian Suarez sits at 40.1%. 

What this data reveals is a predatory pattern shared by the most dangerous forwards in European football, the ability to go quiet, to conserve energy, to drift through a match seemingly uninvolved, and then explode at precisely the right moment with a burst of pace that defenses simply cannot track.

Osimhen does not chase the game. He waits for it. And when it arrives, 33.45 km/h is a very difficult thing to stop.

With the Super Eagles preparing for international duty in Jordan next month, these numbers serve as a timely reminder of what Eric Chelle has at his disposal. 

Iran, Costa Rica, and Jordan will each face a striker who combines Champions League-level pace with the tactical intelligence of a forward who has studied and learned from the very best in the world.

Eleven on the speed chart. First in the hearts of Nigerian football fans. And somewhere in Lisbon, the other Luis Suarez is enjoying his moment at number seven, for now.