John Utaka has given Victor Osimhen one piece of advice for the summer: if Jose Mourinho wants you at Real Madrid, pack your bags and go, because football is about creating history and the Santiago Bernabeu is where history gets made.
John Utaka spent years as a professional footballer in Europe and understands better than most what it means to face a crossroads decision between comfort and ambition. When reports linking Victor Osimhen with a possible move to Real Madrid surfaced alongside speculation about Jose Mourinho’s potential return to the Spanish capital, Utaka did not hesitate with his advice to the Super Eagles striker.
“If I were Osimhen, I would go because if Mourinho has requested for him, it means he really wants him,” Utaka told Brila FM. “Osimhen wants to win trophies and Real Madrid is a perfect fit.”
The logic is hard to argue with. Real Madrid have won more Champions League titles than any club in history. Mourinho, should he return to the Bernabeu, would be one of the few coaches who could realistically offer Osimhen the platform to challenge for every major honour available in club football. For a striker of Osimhen’s quality and ambition, that combination is difficult to resist.
Utaka’s Broader Message: Trophies Create Legacy
Utaka went further than simply directing Osimhen toward Madrid. He framed the advice around a philosophy that anyone who has watched Nigerian football closely will recognise immediately, that the truest measure of a career is not individual awards but collective achievement, the kind that gets talked about across generations.
“Football is about winning trophies and creating history. If the club he’s going to gives him a better chance to win titles and grow financially, then he should take that opportunity,” Utaka said. “At the end of the day, people remember trophies and the teams that achieved them more than individual awards. That’s why generations still talk about the 1996 Olympics team because success creates history that can never be forgotten.”
That invocation of the 1996 Super Eagles Olympic gold medal squad is telling. Utaka was drawing on the clearest example in Nigerian football of collective glory outlasting individual reputation. Players from that squad are still celebrated decades later not simply for their personal quality but for what they built together. His message to Osimhen was that Real Madrid could offer that kind of stage.
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Osimhen’s Numbers Make The Case For Themselves
The context behind Utaka’s advice is a player who has been in the form of his life in Istanbul. Osimhen signed permanently with Galatasaray in July 2025 in a deal worth €75 million, making him the most expensive transfer in Turkish football history and the highest transfer fee ever paid for an African player. In the 2024-25 season, his first on loan, he set a new record for most goals by a foreign player in a single Turkish Süper Lig campaign, scoring 35 goals in 39 official appearances and helping the club complete a domestic double.
In the 2025-26 season, he has continued at a level that has kept Europe’s biggest clubs watching closely. He has recorded 15 goals and five assists in 22 Süper Lig appearances, contributed a crucial Champions League hat-trick against Ajax in November 2025, and scored twice in Galatasaray’s title-clinching 4-2 comeback victory over Antalyaspor on May 9 as the Istanbul club won back-to-back league championships.
His combined record at Galatasaray across the loan and permanent spells stands at 59 goals in 74 appearances, a return that places him among the most productive strikers in world football over the same period. Reports from Spain indicate his current market value sits at around €75 million, with Arsenal, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona all previously linked before Real Madrid’s name entered the conversation.
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The Mourinho Factor
The specific framing of this rumour matters: it is not simply Real Madrid who want Osimhen, it is Mourinho who reportedly wants him. That distinction carries weight. Mourinho had his first spell at the Bernabeu between 2010 and 2013, winning LaLiga in 2012 with a record 100 points. He left under difficult circumstances but has remained one of the most decorated managers in the game, and reports as of May 2026 suggest discussions about his possible return are ongoing, though no official appointment has been confirmed.
What makes the link credible is Mourinho’s documented admiration for Osimhen. During his time managing AS Roma in Serie A, Mourinho frequently faced Napoli and watched Osimhen closely. He publicly compared the Nigerian to Didier Drogba, one of the greatest strikers he ever coached at Chelsea, citing Osimhen’s physical presence, work ethic and clinical finishing as the qualities that made the comparison apt. A manager who thinks that highly of a player does not easily drop the idea of signing him given the opportunity.
For Real Madrid, Osimhen’s profile fits a specific need. The club’s attack currently revolves around Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior as wide threats, and a powerful central striker with the kind of movement, aerial dominance and pressing intensity Osimhen brings would complement both players in ways that pure technicians cannot.
What The Move Would Mean For Nigerian Football
If Osimhen were to complete a move to Real Madrid, he would become the first Nigerian player to represent the most decorated club in European football history at the peak of his powers. That alone would represent a landmark moment for Nigerian football’s international standing, regardless of what he subsequently achieved in a Madrid shirt.
As reported by FootballInNigeria.com.ng, Osimhen is already the second-highest scorer in the history of the Super Eagles, sitting nine goals behind Rashidi Yekini’s all-time record of 37 international goals. He arrives at the 2026 World Cup in the United States this summer with 29 goals in 44 appearances for Nigeria, and whichever club he represents next season will form the backdrop against which the most significant stretch of his international career plays out. Utaka’s message, rooted in his own experience of European football and the enduring power of the 1996 Olympics legacy, is that Osimhen should choose the club that gives him the greatest chance of writing the kind of story that outlasts all of them. For Utaka, that club is Real Madrid. New Bet9ja users tracking this transfer story over the summer can get started early with the Bet9ja sign-up bonus before the window opens.
📌 Did You Know?
- Victor Osimhen’s permanent transfer to Galatasaray in July 2025 cost €75 million, making it simultaneously the most expensive transfer in Turkish football history and the highest fee ever paid for an African footballer.
- John Utaka spent the peak years of his club career in France and England, playing for clubs including Lens, Portsmouth and Montpellier. He was a key figure for the Portsmouth side that won the FA Cup in 2008, giving him direct experience of the kind of trophy success he is urging Osimhen to chase.
- Mourinho’s first spell at Real Madrid ran from 2010 to 2013. His sole LaLiga title came in 2011-12, when Real Madrid finished the season with a record 100 points and 121 goals, a haul that remains the Spanish league’s all-time points record.
- Osimhen scored a Champions League hat-trick for Galatasaray against Ajax in November 2025, becoming only the second Nigerian player ever to score a treble in the competition, after Yakubu, and the first to do so as a Galatasaray player, overtaking even club legend Hakan Sukur in that regard.
- The 1996 Nigeria Olympic gold medal squad that Utaka referenced as an example of lasting legacy beat Argentina 3-2 in the semifinal and Brazil 3-2 in the final, with Jay-Jay Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu and Daniel Amokachi among the key figures. The win over Brazil remains one of the most celebrated results in African football history.
- Osimhen’s Süper Lig record of 35 goals in 39 official appearances during his loan season in 2024-25 surpassed a record previously held by Mario Jardel, a Brazilian striker who played for Galatasaray in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
- During Mourinho’s time at Roma, he came up against Osimhen in the Naples derby fixture multiple times between 2021 and 2023. His public comparison of Osimhen to Drogba first surfaced in that period, making it one of the longest-running pieces of documented managerial admiration in recent Nigerian football history.
