GOING UP

The story of Sweden striker Viktor Gyokeres' career has been one of upward trajectory - and there's plenty more to come from the Sporting superstar

- Bence Bocsak

It’s becoming a craze in Portugal: Sporting supporters walking around the Estadio Jose Alvalade before matchdays with their hands placed over their mouths and their fingers intertwined. They do it in homage to the club’s new icon, Viktor Gyokeres, who does the same gesture every time he scores. Something he’s been doing at an unprecedented frequency since he arrived at the club last summer.

The Sweden international scored 43 goals in his debut season and led the club to its second league title under Ruben Amorim. In the process, he has established himself as one of the most coveted strikers in world football. But his rise to the top has been far from straightforward. There was a point in his career when his coaches doubted whether he would even make it to the very top of the game.

Spotted by IF Brommapojkarna scouts as a 12-year-old playing for his local club IFK Aspudden-Tellus, Gyokeres was not initially open to a move.

“He was not ready to move at the time,” Dalibor Savic, who coached Gyokeres for Brommapojkarna’s Under-19 team, recalls.

Other teams tried to poach Gyokeres from Aspudden-Tellus, but as a teenager he wanted to stay close to his roots. It was only when he finished high school at 16 that he felt ready to uproot his life and join Brommapojkarna.

Yet, despite being so sought after, he didn’t initially stand out at his new club.

“When I became the head coach, he was not one of the best players there [in the Under-19 team],” Savic says. “He was a good player, but we had much better players who we also sold before we sold him. I had Joseph Colley, who was the outstanding player in my team, and we sold him to Chelsea. There were also others who were in front of him.”

What stood out about Gyokeres was not his quality but his desire to improve. He may not have been the best player in the team, but he had the best work ethic.