The Sporting Lisbon striker is Swedish like Ibra and has exchanged shirts with Leao. But he costs at least 50 million
It is certainly no mystery that the largest investment that the Milan will do in the next transfer market will be at the top, a need already overlooked last summer and which can no longer be postponed given that Olivier Giroud could decide to try a new adventure away from Milan at the end of the season. If Zirkzee (Bologna) has been the hottest name in recent weeks, it’s best not to dismiss that of Viktor Gyokeresstriker of Sportling Lisbonawho has already been on the Rossoneri radar for some time but never high up in the hierarchies, which also includes Sesko (Leipzig) and David (Lille).
Born in 1998, yes 36 goals in 39 games in the season, his name has returned to the fore in the last few hours, after his Sweden’s friendly against Portugal. The reason is easy to say: at the end of the match there was a hug peppered with a brief exchange of words with Rafa Leaowho also scored the 1-0: “Leao is a fantastic player and I admire his work. We talked a bit, but nothing special. He just told me that I did well and I told him that I also he didn’t do badly” Gyokeres said in the interviews after the race.
Gyokeres’ great season has obviously raised the antennas of other clubs – the usual Premier League first and foremost – and the price of the clause, 100 million eurosdiscourages anyone a bit but if in the end the scudetto arrives (it’s head to head with Benfica), Sporting Lisbon could also decide to let him leave for a more “humane” sum (perhaps those 50 million which in fact are the fee that Milan has in mind, with Zirkzee and Sesko for whom more or less the same investment would be needed), if the boy pushes a bit.
Part of that push could virtually come from Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Gyokeres’ idol and Cardinale’s right-hand man in Milan. A curiosity: on 24 March 2023 Ibra played his last match as a professional, and in the Sweden-Belgium match Gyokeres had played a few minutes. Now the two could find themselves in the Rossoneri.
See also Milan Milan, good news from Portugal: coach Martinez releases Leao early