Ziyech & Osimhen: Amsterdam's Wizard meets Napoli's Number Nine

Two men, two different origin stories

Hakim Ziyech's path to the top was never straightforward. Born in Dronten to Moroccan parents, he lost his father at ten years old, drifted into delinquency and drug use as a teenager, and was rescued, by his own account, by his mentor Aziz Doufikar and a move to SC Heerenveen's academy. From there he built himself into 'The Wizard', a nickname handed to him by Ajax's own supporters after a 2018-19 season in which he produced 21 goals and 24 assists in all competitions and was voted into the Champions League Squad of the Season. Ajax is not incidental to Ziyech's story; it is the stage where he became the player who would later captain Morocco to a first-ever African World Cup semi-final.

Victor Osimhen's rise came through hardship of a different kind. Raised in the Olusosun area of Lagos near one of the city's largest landfills, he sold sachet water in traffic to help his family after his mother's death. Football took him to VfL Wolfsburg, then a loan to Charleroi, then Lille, before Napoli paid a club-record €80 million for him in 2020. It was in Naples that Osimhen became the player he is now remembered as: 26 goals to win the Serie A golden boot in 2022-23, a first title in three decades for the club, Serie A Footballer of the Year, and eighth in the Ballon d'Or voting. Napoli made Osimhen a superstar in the same way Ajax made Ziyech a wizard.

Where the paths actually crossed

Neither man's Wikipedia page dwells long on Galatasaray, and that is precisely the point of this pairing. Ziyech joined the Istanbul club after his Chelsea years wound down, winning back-to-back Süper Lig titles in 2023-24 and 2024-25. Osimhen arrived on loan from Napoli for the 2024-25 season following a dispute with the club's board in Naples, and immediately finished as the league's top scorer, winning a domestic double before his loan was converted into a permanent, league-record transfer.

That means for one season, the same Süper Lig campaign, the Ajax-forged playmaker and the Napoli-forged No.9 were on the same books, chasing the same trophies in the same colours. It's a pairing that would raise eyebrows at any football pub quiz: name two players who each defined an entirely different club's modern era, then tell me they were teammates.

Why it still feels odd

Part of what makes the overlap surprising is that both men's identities were so thoroughly built elsewhere before Istanbul. Ziyech's honours list is dominated by Ajax and Chelsea silverware, an Eredivisie title, a Champions League winner's medal, with Galatasaray's championships almost an addendum. Osimhen's list reads Napoli first: a Scudetto, a Capocannoniere crown, an African Footballer of the Year award earned in Serie A blue. Neither man's Süper Lig chapter erases those earlier peaks; if anything, it's a reminder that even players whose legacies feel sealed at one club can still find themselves, briefly, wearing the same badge as someone from a completely different footballing story.

For Galatasaray, 2024-25 was simply a title-winning season with two very good players in it. For everyone else, it's the answer to a trivia question nobody thought to ask: what happens when Ajax's Wizard and Napoli's Number Nine end up in the same dressing room?