Victor Osimhen Record Brace Sees Napoli Beat Udinese To Keep Them In Serie A Title Race.

• Victor Osimhen was unstoppable yet again as he continued his scoring streak for Napoli from where he stopped last Sunday.

• He scored a brace in two consecutive league matches for the first time in his entire career.

The Nigerian international was on target again, as he helped Napoli come back from behind to seal a A crucial 2-1 victory in the Serie A over Udinese at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Udinese took a shock lead after 22nd minutes, as Gerard Deulofeu found the bottom left corner of the net with a fantastic finish, after a neat through pass by Roberto Pereyra.

Napoli's unrelenting pressure paid dividends in the second half, as Osimhen headed in at the back of the post from Mario Rui's cross in the 52nd minute to draw Napoli level.

Osimhen turned up again 11 minutes later to put the Partenopeans ahead with an easy tap-in to score his second goal, following a low cross from the byline by an overlapping Giovanni Di Lorenzo to secure all three points for Luciano Spalletti's side.

His two strikes mean that the 23-year-old has now scored four goals in his last two games, as he continues keeping Napoli in the title race. 

The brace was Osimhen's 10th and 11th goals in 20 league appearances, and 15 goals in 23 appearances across all competitions so far in this season, despite missing two months of action due to a facial fracture.

He is now 10 goals behind the league's top scorer so far Ciro Immobile.

It was Osimhen's third brace in the Italian top-flight this term, taking Napoli momentarily top of Serie A with 63 points in 30 matches pending Inter Milan's game against Fiorentina and AC Milan's visit to Cagliari later on Saturday.

His double were the 70,000th and 70,001st goals scored in the Serie A in what was a landmark match for the Italian top-flight.

Meanwhile, the defeat for Udinese sees their winless streak against Napoli now extended to 12 matches in Serie A.

Osimhen becomes the first Nigerian to reach double figures in two different seasons in the Italian top-flight (scoring 10 goals in 24 league games last season), what former compatriots like Obafemi Martins, Nwankwo Kanu, Ayo Makinwa and Obinna Nsofor never did in the Serie A.

He also became the fourth African to do so after George Weah, Mohamed Salah and Samuel Eto'o.

Since he moved to the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona from Lille in August 2020 for a club and African record of €81.3m, he has scored 21 goals in 44 Serie A games.

With eight games to go this season, Osimhen is also on course to break his highest-scoring season in Europe's top five leagues. He scored 13 goals in his debut season with Lille in the French Ligue 1, but he is now just three goals away from breaking that number.

His best-ever return was when he scored 20 goals from 36 appearances for Charleroi during the 2018/19 season.

Great Comeback,Amazing Atmosphere And A Brace⚽️⚽️GOD Is The Greatest🙏🏽We Move @sscnapoli 🔵⚪️ pic.twitter.com/EiRZoqy450

— victor osimhen (@victorosimhen9) March 19, 2022

Although he won't be available when Napoli plays away to Atalanta in their next league game on Sunday, April 3rd due to accumulation of five yellow cards this campaign.

However, He is set to return just in time with his sensational form, when the Super Eagles of Nigeria takes on the Black Stars of Ghana in a double header World Cup qualifying play-off games on March 25 and 29 for a place in Qatar 2022.

Osimhen leads the 32-man Nigerian squad called up by interim manager Augustine Eguavoen, alongside Al Hilal's O"Ighalo", Leicester City's "Kelechi Iheanacho", and La Liga 2 Player of the month for February winner with Almeria "Umar Sadiq" as part of nine forwards to do the buisness for the Super Eagles.