During Viktor Gyökeres’s first year at Sporting CP, there was one particular story which fizzed around Portugal’s gossip columns.
Rumour had it that the Swedish striker lost a tennis match to his then-girlfriend Amanda Nildén, a professional footballer for Tottenham Hotspur herself, while on holiday. In a blinding fit of rage, Gyökeres supposedly threw a tantrum so bad that it ruined the rest of the trip.
At the end of an in-depth interview covering a number of serious topics, ’s Simon Bank couldn’t help but ask Gyökeres whether there was any merit to this rather unflattering piece of tittle-tattle.
“That’s true,” he shrugged. It might not have ruined the entire holiday, but Gyökeres confirmed that he refused to speak to Nildén for “half a day or whatever”. Entirely unashamed by his John McEnroe homage, the perennial competitor reasoned that he “was a little worse at tennis” and stressed: “It was lucky.”
By his own admission, this feverish desire to win has always burned in Gyökeres. It’s why he has averaged a goal every 87 minutes for two years, why Arsenal have paid more than £63 million ($86 million) for his services and why he won’t be handed a racket upon his arrival in north London.
