Victor Osimhen has a major point to prove at AFCON 2025

Victor Osimhen goes to Morocco with numbers that already place him in rare company.

Six goals separate him from Rashidi Yekini’s all-time Super Eagles record, and at his current pace, that gap feels more like a formality than a barrier. In pure output, he is already in the argument for Nigeria’s greatest striker. That conversation, however, is never settled by totals alone.

Tournaments shape legacies in a way qualifiers and friendlies never do. Osimhen’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) record remains thin, not entirely by his own making. Injury ruled him out of the 2021 edition, and Nigeria’s failure to reach the 2022 World Cup robbed him of another global stage. The reality is that he has effectively had one major tournament run with the Super Eagles, and even that came with interruptions.

Yekini’s standing is built on moments under pressure, goals scored when stakes were highest and opponents strongest. That is where the 26-year-old still trails. For all his brilliance, the toughest sides he has scored against for Nigeria are open to debate: Cape Verde, probably. It is not a slight, just context; at international level, that context matters.

Tournaments, not goals, will define Osimhen’s Super Eagles legacy

Nigeria’s history is filled with prolific forwards whose international reputations never quite caught fire at tournaments.

Ikechukwu Uche, Obafemi Martins and even Yakubu Aiyegbeni scored freely but left little behind when Africa’s biggest prizes were on the line. Osimhen is clearly a level above them, but he is not immune to the same judgement.

The last AFCON was instructive. The Galatasaray multimillionaire worked tirelessly, pressed defenders and occupied entire back lines, yet he left goals on the table, his sole strike coming in the opener against Equatorial Guinea.

That theme resurfaced in the 2026 World Cup playoffs against Gabon where, even though his late brace in extra time framed him as the hero, his shocking misses in regular time directly contributed to the Super Eagles’ lethargic showing three days later against DR Congo.

With hindsight, this was a proper pivot moment.

If Osimhen had scored here, there would have been no extra time, no added fatigue for the entire team and (likely) no first-half injury for himself vs DRC.

By no means his fault, especially as he atoned in ET. Just sliding doors. pic.twitter.com/Zs5R56iJyX

— Solace Chukwu (@TheOddSolace) November 17, 2025

Those games raised an uncomfortable question: does his dominance translate fully when margins tighten? Is he really, at the end of it all, just a flat-track bully?

AFCON 2025 offers clarity. If Osimhen leads Nigeria deep into the tournament and delivers against the continent’s elite, the Yekini debate shifts from numbers to inevitability. If not, the narrative hardens, and no amount of goals in qualifiers will soften it.