Gyokeres puts the mask on ahead of Arsenal showdown

Most of Viktor Gyokeres' career is inconsequential. Not any more. Sporting Lisbon's star striker has been boasting an unstoppable goalscoring rate for four seasons in a row. The key was the 21-22 season, when he terrorised the English Championship, the second division, with 18 goals in 47 appearances for Coventry City. The following year, he scored 22 in 50 appearances. Then, he exported his talent to Portugal in a 20 million euro deal, 43 in 50. 43 in 50. Now, 23 in 18... and the campaign has not yet reached its halfway point.

The Champions League is back on Tuesday with the start of the second half of its league phase. The format is new and involves a series of 8 matchdays. There have already been 4 and the Swede is one of its main protagonists. In his most recent match on the continental board, he faced another merciless striker, Erling Haaland, and beat him hands down. He hit a hat trick while the Norwegian missed a penalty.

His next opponent is also in the Premier League: Mikel Arteta's Arsenal. Nobody would have convinced the Spanish coach, a few months ago, that his main concern at the end of November 2024 would be a striker who, at the age of 23, had only played 134 professional games, none of them in the top flight. It is the rise of a striker who renews the certainty that an expert goalkeeper begets confidence.

When Viktor Gyokeres scores a goal, he interlaces all his fingers except his thumbs, which he holds up, and covers his mouth and most of his nose. Only his eyes and the upper end of his nasal septum are exposed. The gesture is already a hit in Lisbon, where it is common to see the stands filling up with fans of all ages doing the same thing when their idol finds the net.

His intention is to imitate Bane, the notorious supervillain of the Batman saga. He is a villain who spent much of his life in prison and was beaten so badly in solitary confinement known as The Pit that he needed permanent painkillers to ease the pain. Hence, he wears a dark mask with several tubes that pump gases into his body. In this way, he allows himself to continue fighting another day.

For the Swedish striker, leaving Brommapojkarna, the club where he grew up, was the starting signal for his pain. Brighton & Hove Albion bought him for half a million euros, but never won him first-team opportunities and loaned him out to Saint Pauli, Swansea City and Coventry City. It was only the last of these destinations that sparked the version he is now known for after so long in the background.

A victim of modern football's loan system, which has made it a routine to pick up young talent and move it from squad to squad without ever showing confidence in his talent, he has been forging on in pain since before he came of age. Now, at 26, he boasts a market value of 67.4 million euros and his goal tally, since he first came to prominence in England, has been a record-breaking 106 goals in 165 appearances over the last four seasons.

Wielding a height bordering on 2m of verticality, a native of Stockholm and with a technical fluency that adds to his stature, his numbers and presence on the pitch speak for themselves. They are enough to terrify the defences of not just the silver-medal teams to which he is loaned out, but any guard in the big leagues. In a way, to give him so much importance now is fair, but it is also to give him the reason when he vindicates himself.