Victor Osimhen scored the most important goal of the night on Wednesday in the Champions League match against Juventus. What stood out was that the Galatasaray striker did not celebrate his goal. After the match, the Italian media asked for an explanation.
Juventus beat Galatasaray 3–2, completing an extraordinary fightback from three goals down, yet the victory still ended in elimination from the Champions League.
It was one of those nights in which the scoreline captured only part of the story, because Juventus managed to flip the emotion of the match without fully flipping the tie. For long periods, the Italians looked to be heading for a damaging European exit, then suddenly looked capable of pulling off the impossible, and yet in the end the decisive action arrived in extra time to make sure Galatasaray stayed in control of what truly mattered: progression.
The match developed into a contest of shifting belief. Galatasaray’s advantage created a sense that the Turkish side had already done the hard part, while Juventus were forced into a position where they had to gamble, increase the tempo, and take risks that can either produce a miracle or accelerate a collapse. At that stage, everything becomes about managing pressure. A team defending a lead is asked to show maturity with the ball, calm in transitions, and discipline without it, while the team chasing the game plays with urgency and feeds off any moment that suggests doubt, fatigue, or panic.
Juventus found a way to ignite that urgency. Coming back from a three goal deficit is not simply a matter of scoring once. It requires sustained momentum, repeated waves of pressure, and the emotional energy to keep believing even when the opponent can still hurt you at any moment. The fact that Juventus did claw their way back speaks to how turbulent the match became, and to how difficult Galatasaray found it to control the evening, especially after Juventus were reduced to ten men. Osimhen himself later acknowledged that point bluntly, describing Galatasaray’s display as poor even in a situation where the opposition’s numerical disadvantage should have made game management simpler.
That is what made the key moment in extra time so significant. With Juventus having dragged themselves into contention and having created the sense that a complete turnaround was on the table, Victor Osimhen struck to make it 3–1. In practical terms, it was the goal that restored Galatasaray’s advantage at the most decisive moment, re establishing a buffer just when Juventus had begun to look emotionally unstoppable. In narrative terms, it was the moment that snapped Juventus’ momentum and forced the match back into the shape Galatasaray wanted, where Juventus would have to chase again under even more pressure, with less time and fewer margins.
Osimhen’s goal was described as the most important of the night, and the reaction to it became a story in itself. Instead of celebrating, the Galatasaray striker walked back towards his own half with a steely expression, almost as if he had completed a routine task rather than scored a potentially season defining Champions League goal. The contrast was striking. In matches like this, players often celebrate because celebration is release, it is relief, it is a message to teammates and supporters that the danger has passed. Osimhen did not provide that release. He did not perform for the cameras. He did not invite the crowd into the moment. He simply turned away.
Afterwards he explained that he did not feel the need to celebrate, and he connected that decision to respect. Luciano Spalletti, his former coach at Napoli, is now the Juventus manager, and Osimhen said he wanted to show respect to someone who means a great deal to him and played an important role in his career. He framed it as a personal choice grounded in gratitude and recognition. It was not an attempt to provoke the opponent, and not a sign of indifference to the goal’s importance. It was, in his words, about acknowledging a figure who helped shape his journey.
But Osimhen also made clear that the lack of celebration had another layer. He did not want the moment to distract from what he felt about the performance. He said Galatasaray played badly, and he emphasised that the team failed to play to their standard even when Juventus had ten men. That is a pointed criticism because playing against ten often allows the team with eleven to reduce chaos, to keep the ball, to draw the sting from the opponent, and to choose the moments when to accelerate. Osimhen’s assessment implied Galatasaray did not do those things, and that they allowed the match to become more open and volatile than it should have been. He also stressed that he is not a player who tries to hide emotions, and that he could say he is happy, but he was honest that he was also disappointed. The mood, he suggested, was mixed. The job was done, yet the manner of doing it left him unsatisfied.
In other words, his expression after scoring was not emptiness. It was a reflection of tension. It was the look of a player who understood that qualification had been secured in a way that felt unnecessarily stressful, and that a team cannot rely on decisive moments forever if it repeatedly allows opponents back into ties. That sort of message, coming from the scorer of the defining goal, can resonate inside a dressing room. It is both a public statement and an internal warning, especially with the next round approaching.
Galatasaray did add another goal after Osimhen’s strike, with Barış Alper Yılmaz also scoring, reinforcing that the Turkish side still carried threat even late in the contest. For Juventus, that underlined the cruel logic of knockout football. They achieved something extraordinary by recovering from three down and winning the match, but the tie still slipped away. A comeback can be heroic and still be insufficient, because European nights are decided by the key actions at the key times, and Osimhen’s goal in extra time was precisely that.
With Juventus out, Galatasaray’s focus now shifts immediately to what comes next. They will face English opposition in the round of 16, with Liverpool or Tottenham Hotspur to be drawn on Friday. That prospect raises the stakes of Osimhen’s critique. Against elite opponents, the margin for sloppy phases is even smaller, and periods of poor control are punished more ruthlessly. Galatasaray can take confidence from their ability to land the decisive blow under pressure, but Osimhen’s comments suggest confidence alone will not be enough. The next step of their European campaign will demand not just moments, but a higher baseline performance, because the teams waiting in the draw rarely allow a match to swing back and forth without making you pay.
