A Victor Osimhen hattrick and goals from Ademola Lookman, Taiwo Awoniyi and Samuel Chukwueze helped the Super Eagles of Nigeria wallop Sao Tome, finishing the AFCON2023Q as group winners.
The Napoli striker opened the goal scoring for Nigeria against Sao Tome and Principe in the 14th minute of the first half.
A penalty in the 69th minute and another goal in the 79th completed Osimhen’s hattrick on the day.
The 20 goals haul means he needs 17 more goals to catch-up with Nigeria’s all-time leading goal scorer, Rashidi Yekini.
However, Rashidi Yekini is on 37 goals from 58 matches for Nigeria.
Victor Osimhen has now scored 20 goals for the Super Eagles, surpassing Obafemi Martins (18) and now 4th, ahead of Ikechukwu Uche (19) in all-time list.
He is one goal away from matching Yakubu Aiyegbeni’s tally (21) and two from Segun Odegbami.
Interestingly, a breakdown of Osimhen’s 20 goals for Nigeria shows that Sao Tome is responsible for 35%(7) of his goals.
Sierra Leone is close second with four goals while he scored three and two goals against Lesotho and Cape Verde respectively.
Furthermore, Ukraine, Benin Republic, Liberia and Central Africa Republic all contributed one goal each to his 20 goals haul.
Osimhen’s hattrick is coming few days after receiving his first-ever Ballon D’or Nomination from French Football magazine.
AFCON Top Scorer
Coming into the game, The Napoli striker was on seven goals and on top of the AFCON qualifying scorers chart.
Meanwhile, Victor Osimhen now sits atop the AFCON 2023 qualifying campaign scoring chart with 10 goals, five more than his closest rival, Senegal Sadio Mane.