(Football news) Noah Okafor, the Swiss forward’s future at Milan is all but assured at this point, another impressive victory in a swift hiring drive spearheaded by new owners RedBird and Gerry Cardinale.
Following their June 2022 takeover, they had a disastrous first season as the club’s owners because they chose not to invest after the Rossoneri won the Scudetto for the first time in eleven years. It was therefore not surprising to see the poor start cause some severe PTSD among Milan fans, who had been through hell and back with owners in the previous ten years.
Even if it required the sale of their title-winning, boyhood fan midfield maestro, there has been a huge sigh of relief in the red half of the city now that the investment has finally started.
However, it is not what we are here to do right now. We’re come to introduce you to Okafor, the striker Milan have been pleading for to take some of the pressure off Olivier Giroud after Divock Origi failed to live up to expectations and Zlatan Ibrahimovic submitted to the ravages of ageing. Giroud has been nothing less than a superstar since joining from Chelsea in 2021, while Origi underwhelmed after joining last season on a free transfer.
The emphasis is on Okafor and the other new faces to propel Milan back to the top after the defending champions just missed a top-four finish. For those who don’t know, the 23-year-old joins from Red Bull Salzburg after contributing to 15 goals across all competitions in 2022–2023, a modest but promising total.
But those of us who support Milan are well aware of him. Actually, it works too well. And so does Milan’s defence, which he dismantled in the Champions League last year with a goal that was subtly among the best in the tournament. Someone did, after all, take Jim Ross”make yourself famous’ commentary of Jeff Hardy vs. The Undertaker for the Undisputed Title too seriously.
We’re not sure about famous, but after that, Okafor became infamous in the Milan locker room. All you can do is scream silently and wince as Pierre Kalulu collapses to the ground like a man who has had too much Limoncello. It’s hard to watch that back. However, Okafor didn’t stop there.
After displaying exceptional striker intelligence to get between the full-back and centre-back, push Davide Calabria off to hold his line, and then leave Kalulu for dead with an outrageous nutmeg, he continues by scoring his second nutmeg in as many seconds by threading the ball through Mike Maignan and into the goal.
When Okafor first encountered the two of them at Milanello, we’d give anything to be a fly on the wall. Under the spotlight of the Champions League, Kalulu was left for dead and one of the best goalkeepers in the world was made to seem foolish. If we’ve ever witnessed aura, that is it.
Although moving from the Austrian Bundesliga to one of the greatest and most illustrious clubs in international football is a rather huge step, we’re confident that Okafor has the qualifications to enter the fashion capital and act like the star of the show.
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