Viktor Gyokeres, as told by his team-mates and coaches

New York Times

5 days ago

From cut knees on the gravel pitches at his first club, to special gym workouts, Viktor Gyokeres is testament to the transformative powers of resilience, dedication and self-improvement.
All-encompassing graft has turned a strong but unspectacular young player, who at one stage seemed good enough only for the Swedish first division, into a goal-scoring phenomenon at the top level of the club game.
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Hard work is standard for most successful sportspeople, but the 27-year-old harnessed it from an early age. In doing so, Gyokeres ensured that, despite being a late bloomer, constant toil would make him one of the world's most coveted footballers.
As Arsenal finally complete their move for the Sweden international, The Athletic spoke to former team-mates and coaches to find out what it's like to play with and against him.
Additional reporting: Art de Roché, Sebastian Stafford-Bloor and Jack Lang
At first, David Eklund needed some convincing. The scout for Stockholm club IF Brommapojkarna had decided just to keep tabs on the 11-year-old striker at local amateur team Aspudden-Tellus he had heard about.
'I was not immediately sure,' he tells The Athletic. 'He was really strong. Not so big then, but strong and hard-working.
'He could shoot from distance and score with his head. In the penalty area, he was a killer. But he was not so good technically. I didn't think he'd be a superstar. Maybe he'd play the highest level in Sweden or something like that.'
At that time, Eklund was only just learning about the young Gyokeres' relentless work ethic and ambition. It had long been apparent to team-mates and coaches at Aspudden-Tellus, a club run by volunteers in suburban south Stockholm, roughly a mile from Gyokeres' childhood home.
'It was very clear,' says Bjorn Thuresson, Aspudden-Tellus' president. 'All his trainers spoke of his super dedication, and that was apparent early on.
'He wasn't that big as a child, but he was always physical. It is funny to see now, because there are aspects of his play he's kept from his early years. There would always be a bunch of adults watching when his team would play.
'He was goal-oriented. He was not that interested in spending too much time in the middle of the pitch — he always headed for goal and he scored a lot.'
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Gyokeres' father Stefan was a coach at the club and oversaw his son's team. 'You would often see Viktor and his friends practising before training,' recalls Thuresson. 'He was extremely focused on his football, and that's all you heard about him.
'Well, that and you'd just hear people talking about how many goals he scored.'
Gyokeres started playing with Aspudden-Tellus at the age of six and when he was old enough to play in games, it was all a far cry from the manicured surfaces he would one day grace in stadiums across Europe.
'He started off with us on the gravel pitch,' says Thuresson. 'It has changed, with more artificial pitches, since but at the time it was the only option.
'They had to wear special trousers so as not to scratch their knees. It was very down-to-earth.'
Aspudden-Tellus, whose senior team play in the Swedish fourth tier, did not have an all-weather surface, so during the harsh winters, Gyokeres and team-mates would hone their skills playing indoor futsal.
Despite the club's humble setup, Gyokeres stayed with them until he was 15.
'We accept anyone who wants to play, so the skill levels can be very different on the same team,' explains Thuresson. 'But it means the kids play many different types of games: sometimes with the best and they can hone their skills one way, but others with less advanced players and they must take on another type of responsibility.
'That was useful for him. He enjoyed it because if you join an academy (at a professional club), you only get one level of team-mate. I think having that responsibility will have helped him.'
Eventually, Gyokeres did move on, after Eklund arranged for him to join Brommapojkarna's academy.
'I followed him for a while, watching him once a month, and made the first attempt to get him when he was 13,' remembers Eklund. 'I kept in contact with his father for the next couple of years.
'We played technical football, so it (his lack of finesse at that stage) was a bit of an issue, but sometimes you can just go for technical players and they don't work. His goalscoring was so good, it boded well for the future, and working with our coaches would improve him. He scored with both feet, the head, (he laughs) the ass.'
By that stage, Gyokeres, who is now 6ft 2in (188cm), had started to grow taller and get stronger. 'The first time I properly met him and shook his hand, his hand swallowed mine!' says Eklund.
Eklund had competition from other Stockholm teams, but Brommapojkarna's reputation for developing young players put them ahead of the rest. The interest in the young forward did not stretch beyond his homeland's borders, though.
'Bromma had the best relationship with the family and is the best club at developing young players,' says Eklund. 'Nobody from outside of Sweden was looking at him. They didn't know about him in Denmark or Norway. He has always been a late bloomer.'
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Despite coaching his son and being a constant advisor as his career began to take off, Eklund insists Gyokeres' father was not overly controlling.
'Stefan is a nice guy,' says Eklund. 'He was not the pushy sort who would be demanding his son play in a certain position, etc. He always used to say Viktor had to do it himself. The most important thing for him was a club with the best coaches who'd take care of his son.'
Hard work and a physical growth spurt led to early first-team opportunities for Gyokeres with Brommapojkarna in the Allsvenskan, Sweden's top professional division, after he had scored 16 goals in 17 games for their under-19 team.
'I remember the first team had a lot of injured players in 2015 and the coach called me and asked if we had any academy players who were strong enough to play for the first team,' says Eklund. 'I said, 'Yes, Viktor Gyokeres is strong enough to play there.' That was when he was 16.
'They took him and, the year after that, he started to do really well. He was like a grown man.'
He joined the first team in 2017, when they were in the second division. Thirteen goals and eight assists in a season put Gyokeres on the radar of clubs beyond Sweden, and that September, he signed a two-and-a-half-year deal to join Brighton & Hove Albion of the Premier League in the following January window.
His farewell performance was a hat-trick in a season-finale win which clinched promotion back to the top flight.
A post shared by Viktor Gyökeres (@viktorgyokeres)
The next stage was a step into the unknown with Brighton via under-23s football in Premier League 2.
'I met him in Nando's the day before he signed for us,' recalls then Brighton Under-23 team-mate Steven Alzate. 'I'd seen Vik in the training ground during the day and later that evening, I was getting food with (then Brighton goalkeeper) Robert Sanchez. We saw him there with his girlfriend before he'd been announced.
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'We got chatting and then it was easier for him to approach us the next day, because he recognised us and got more relaxed around us.
'We used to go for brunch. Other times, we'd meet up and watch Champions League games together.'
Alzate, now with Hull City of England's second-tier Championship, admired his new friend's discipline. 'He is always in the gym,' he says. 'He loved doing his core work. He would be (in the gym) every day, doing his own little routine.
'You see him now and he's ripped. Shredded. He's obviously carried on with that discipline and hard work. He's done everything he can that's in his control and now the rest has fallen into place for him.'
Not everything fell immediately into place for Gyokeres in England. He scored seven times for Brighton Under-23s in the second half of that 2017-18 season, but senior-level opportunities were limited.
'His attitude and appetite stood out,' remembers Dale Stephens, a first-team regular in Brighton's midfield at that time.
'We were struggling at the time (it was Brighton's first Premier League season, and they finished 15th in the 20-team division) and he was young, so he found his opportunities limited, but what was noticeable was the size of him for a kid. He was a big, powerful boy, a threat, and that was along with that appetite to get better.
'What you see now is the result of years of that same mindset.'
Stephens admits that, despite Gyokeres' physical power and scoring record back home, he did not seem a natural at the higher level he encountered in England.
'It was more about him being incredibly athletic, powerful, and a threat in terms of his pace behind,' he says. 'But I wouldn't have said at the time he was a natural goalscorer. He was 21 then, so I would say it's not a natural gift; it's something he's worked very hard on. His finishing is a testament to hard work.
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'It can be quite daunting coming in as an under-23s player when you're so young, but he was training with us regularly. He wasn't afraid of putting in challenges in training. You could see how he trained and he never missed a gym session. Because he relied on his strength, you can see that it was important to him and why he's maintained it. He obviously knew he needed that in his armoury to play at the top level.'
With first-team exposure at Brighton only fitful after his first full year with the club, in July 2019, Gyokeres moved on a season's loan to St Pauli of the German second division.
People behind the scenes at the Hamburg club recall the same extra work after training, on both technique and his fitness, mentioned above. Gyokeres is remembered as a talented player, and St Pauli had a bid to make the move permanent rejected by Brighton after his loan spell brought seven goals and four assists in 26 league games.
Brighton were not ready to give up on the young Swede, but he still could not break into their first team under then head coach Graham Potter. Potter wanted a No 9 who could drop deep and link build-up play, and Gyokeres did not fit that profile, so loans into the Championship at Swansea City and then Coventry City followed, before a permanent move to the latter in summer 2021.
Gyokeres never got closer to playing for Brighton in the Premier League than a handful of appearances on the bench, and of the eight times he did get a game (five starts), during which he scored once, four were in the Carabao Cup.
'When he wasn't getting the opportunities (to play), he actually took the hit and went to Coventry,' says Stephens. 'It was a step down in level, but he catapulted forward in development terms. He had his chance, did well and earned the move to Sporting. It's a good example for most young players.'
Gyokeres' first season as a permanent Coventry player was memorable, with 18 goals in all competitions. Midfielder Ben Sheaf was on loan at the Midlands club from Arsenal at the same time and also joined permanently in July 2021.
'When he came (on loan), he was in and out of the team and showed glimpses of quality,' says Sheaf, who is the same age as the centre-forward. 'He signed permanently after the first loan, and he came back having put more muscle on and was even more physical.
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'He was relentless with how much he practised. He'd do a lot of finishing drills after training. I remember once in training, we did 11-v-11, and the ball got thrown into him when I was playing against him.
'He pinned and rolled me, and I just couldn't do anything about it. That was the first time I remember thinking: 'Blimey, this is what opposition teams are going to feel'. That was the first time I felt his physicality.
'He was always ultra-competitive in training. He'd throw his toys out of the pram if we didn't win a small-sided game.'
Coventry spent time working on Gyokeres' ability with his back to goal in tighter areas, as well as moving across defenders and finishing early. He responded with 38 goals in 91 league appearances for the club.
'He was our main man,' says Sheaf. 'He could run in behind, hold the ball up and was so physical. The way we played was probably based around his attributes.
'We loved having the ball, but at times we could sit in deep and know we've got him on the counter to drag us up the pitch.'
Gyokeres' physical dominance meant he was a constant option for hard-pressed team-mates.
'The goal that stands out most is against Wigan (in 2023),' says Sheaf. 'The ball gets booted clear. He brings it down on the halfway line and just drifts away from everyone. I was actually the person running behind him and he was dribbling away from me when I was trying to catch up.
'He ended up scoring anyway.'
Even as a deeper-lying midfielder, Sheaf recalls knowing that the sight of Gyokeres running the channels was a strong passing option.
'I knew I didn't always have to get it out wide or play short,' he says. 'There was an option in knowing that if he's running the channel, he's winning the ball because he's that powerful. He makes your pass look good.'
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Off the pitch, Gyokeres was starting to come out of his shell. 'He's a serious guy until you get to know him and he opens up,' Sheaf says. 'He's a good lad but he'd be arguing in training, always wanting to win and doing finishing drills after — absolutely t**ting balls in.
'Ben Wilson, our 'keeper, used to call him 'You big Swedish meatball-head', in his Geordie accent. But he was one of the lads that was closest to him at the time and they used to take the p**s out of each other.'
After smashing in 22 goals in the 2022-23 season for Coventry, which ended in penalty shootout defeat to Luton Town in the Championship's play-off final with Premier League promotion on the line, Gyokeres joined Portuguese top-flight side Sporting CP on a five-year deal for a club-record €24million (£21.6m/$28m).
In Lisbon, he went into overdrive.
Last season, he scored 54 times in 52 games as Sporting won the league title and cup double.
'A phenomenon,' Sporting coach Rui Borges called him after hr got two goals against Casa Pia in March. 'He's got it all: technical quality, strength, lucidity. He's one of the best strikers ever to play in our league.'
Before facing him in another game that month, Estrela da Amadora defender Ferro suggested the only way to stop the Swedish forward was with a 'magic potion'.
Now comes the biggest test yet, with Gyokeres charged with translating all that to the English top flight he never quite got to play in with Brighton and fell just shy of reaching as a Coventry player. Is he ready?
Eklund is sure. 'He needs to play every week,' he says. 'He's perfect for the Premier League.'
Stephens, who made 109 Premier League appearances for Brighton and Burnley, agrees. 'He has all the attributes. I suppose it'll be: can he do it in the big games? But I don't think Arsenal will look at this as a risk. They will have looked at him against the top teams in the Champions League.'
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Finally, for Sheaf, the Arsenal move, along with Gyokeres' Champions League exploits — including a hat-trick against Manchester City last season — is evidence that 'The big meatball-head' is much more than just power and pace.
'He's not just a machine that can run through people and bully defenders,' he says. 'He can play more intricately. He's going to have to adapt his game, but he's only going to get better.'