Viktor Gyokeres has had plenty of opportunities to show off his unique goal celebration at Sporting, but what is the inspiration behind it?
The 26-year-old has been in incredibly good form for Sporting since joining from Coventry City last year, becoming one of the hottest strikers in world football.
The Sweden international scored 43 goals in 50 games in his first season with Sporting and has shown no signs of slowing down, with 23 in 17 matches over this campaign.
The latest three of those goals came in an amazing 4-1 win for Sporting over Manchester City in the Champions League, which has got Manchester United fans very excited about manager Ruben Amorim arriving from the Portuguese side.
Gyokeres is staying in Lisbon, for now, where we can expect to see a lot more of his goal celebration over the rest of the campaign.
After finding the back of the net the prolific forward interlocks the fingers on both hands and places his palms on his face, across his mouth.
The Sporting star has not said a huge amount about why he does this, but he has given one huge clue as to the inspiration of the celebration.
Gyokeres posted a compilation of goals and celebrations on Instagram in June, which had the caption: ‘Nobody cared until I put on the mask 🎭’
The line is a slight misquote from the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises, when the villain Bane says: ‘It doesn’t matter who we are, what matters is our plan. No one cared who I was till I put on the mask.’
It’s unlikely that Gyokeres is paying a tribute to Bane because he intends to blow up a city with a massive bomb, but you simply never know.
The forward has not just started showing off the celebration in Portugal, having done the Bane move in his Coventy days and for Sweden.
It was his performances for the Sky Blues that earned him the big move to Sporting, having scored 40 goals in 97 appearances for the Championship side.
He has now scored 10 in 24 caps for Sweden as well.
Unsurprisingly he is now being linked with another big move to a string of European giants, including Arsenal, Chelsea, Bayern Munich and of course Manchester United.
His current manager is set to take over at Old Trafford on Monday, but Amorim has told the Swede to stay put, at least until the end of the season.
‘I’ve just made peace with the Sporting fans, I’m not even going to make a joke about it,’ Amorim said when asked about his striker after the Man City win.
‘Gyokeres is a Sporting player, which is a great club, he did a lot for it, he was in the second division, he just has to stay and finish the season at Marques.’
Asked the same in a separate interview, Amorim replied: ‘No, no, no. I cannot be funny with that in this moment.
‘It was tough for me to leave, if I start joking about that with Gyokeres, I’ll have problems. This is my city, this is my country, I will respect.
‘Viktor has to stay until the end of the season and then his life is going, maybe, somewhere else.’
Gyokeres was not asked about a possible move to United but said of Amorim: ‘We will miss him a lot, of course.
‘We achieved a lot together and we will miss him and the other members of the staff, but they are leaving and we have to move on and face the next challenge we have.’
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