Kind of sexy, kind of weird — getting familiar with Noah Okafor — Square Ball 21/8/25
Up close and personal
Written by: Chris McMenamy
Leeds United’s ninth signing of the summer comes ten days
ahead of the transfer window closing. Let’s say hello (again) to Noah Okafor
and work out who exactly is the man from Milan.
Career so far
Okafor was born in Switzerland and joined his local top
flight club FC Basel’s youth team aged nine, where I can say with a degree of
certainty that he never played against Isaac Schmidt despite my extensive
search of Transfermarkt.
Okafor made his full debut for FC Basel’s first team in July
2018 and scored in a 1-1 draw with Neuchatel Xamax. His first season in
professional football ended with Basel winning the Swiss Cup. Okafor scored the
opener in the semi-final and played the full ninety minutes in the final.
He joined Red Bull Salzburg in January 2020, halfway through
his second season at Basel, presumably motivated by the opportunity to work
with their coach Jesse Marsch. Okafor was signed as part of a crop aimed at
replacing Red Bull’s outgoing striker. You might have heard of him — Erling
Haaland?
His career in Austria got off to a slow start thanks to
Covid putting a stop to football for three months, but Okafor hit the ground
running when things restarted, scoring three times before the end of the season
with Marsch using him as a forward or a winger, but not like a real winger. A
Jesse Marsch winger.
Four seasons at Fizzy Salzburg gave him quite the trophy
cabinet, as you can imagine. Four league titles, three Austrian Cups. He scored
34 goals and assisted another 23 in 110 matches for the Bull’s Piss franchise,
which earned him a move to AC Milan.
He joined them a year after they’d won Serie A for the first
time in over a decade and formed part of a huge summer transfer spend as the
club combined Champions League money with the £50m earned by selling Sandro
Tonali to Newcastle. In Okafor, Milan felt they were buying potential but that
also meant they didn’t yet consider him a starting winger. It made sense
because they had star player Rafael Leao on the left and Christian Pulisic on
the right, a player who immediately found himself rejuvenated in Milan after a
few tough years at Chelsea.
This limited Okafor to mostly substitute appearances in 2023/24, but he made a noticeable impact, scoring six goals and assisting three, including setting up the winner at St James’ Park against Newcastle in the Champions League.
Okafor had a knack of being in the right place at the right
time late in matches, making the most of his pace and decent presence in the
penalty area to score some very important goals, including a late winner at
Udinese. The match had been quite charged, Milan walked off the pitch after
Udinese fans racially abused Milan ‘keeper Mike Maignan in the first half.
With the match locked at 2-2, Okafor popped up to finish
calmly from a corner in the 93rd minute.
Milan expected Okafor to kick on last season but injuries
and a few underwhelming performances in Paulo Fonseca’s flawed side saw him
dropped. Milan were something of a basket case last season and sat 8th in Serie
A by the time an injured Okafor failed a medical at RB Leipzig before joining
Napoli on loan for the rest of 2024/25.
He struggled to break into Napoli’s settled side as they
chased a Serie A title that they eventually won. Okafor made only four
substitute appearances and it seemed clear that head coach Antonio Conte didn’t
really know how to use him in his team. Still, he got a winner’s medal and
returned to Milan with more league titles than most of his teammates could
boast.
Okafor has also won 24 caps for Switzerland since making his
debut against Italy in November 2021.
Do we have history?
We have very recent history. If this were the 1990s — or the
Massimo Cellino days — we’d all be convinced that Okafor had been signed on the
basis of his pre-season performance against Leeds in Dublin.
He started on the left wing that day and played the full
ninety minutes. Okafor had compatriot Isaac Schmidt defending against him at
right-back for Leeds, and he roasted the poor lad all day. It was a battle of
two rusty players up against each other, but Okafor looked much sharper and
Milan clearly felt the same, constantly working the ball down their left flank.
Okafor played his part in setting up the Milan goal with a
nice backheel into the space he’d created for Samuel Chukwueze, who crossed to
Santi Gimenez to score.
Best moment
It’s not a moment, per se, but a three-match scoring run in
the Champions League. Some Milan fans believe that Okafor was signed on the
basis of his goal against them for RB Salzburg in a 1-1 draw back in September
2022.
Milan were champions of Italy and travelled to Austria for
their first group match in that season’s Champions League with plenty of
confidence, expecting an away win to start them off well.
Okafor received the ball on the edge of Milan’s area and sat
defender Pierre Kalulu down before striking under goalkeeper Maignan to make it
1-0.
A week later, Okafor scored a 75th-minute equaliser against
Chelsea in a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge and struck the only goal in a 1-0 win
against Dinamo Zagreb in the next group match.
Worst moment
Again, not exactly a moment, but Okafor’s greatest issue so
far in his career has been consistency thanks to a less than stellar injury
record. He has missed 27 matches in the past two seasons thanks to a series of
minor injuries, setbacks which damaged Milan’s confidence that he could be a
starting player or relied upon to do the job they signed him to perform: act as
Rafael Leao’s back-up.
A reliable second choice winger needs to be fit and
available. There’s little doubt that Okafor had the explosiveness and eye for
goal that made him a perfect impact player, but it wasn’t enough given that he
is often returning to fitness rather than consistently being at full fitness
and match sharpness.
Rate the announcement
As with all transfers, Fabrizio Romano did his best to spoil
any element of surprise with his incessant updates about updates. But he did at
least give us this photo:
🚨🟡🔵 EXCL: Noah Okafor, on his way to England as he signs in as new Leeds player later today! ✈️
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) August 20, 2025
4 year contract plus option to extend, fee around €20m to AC Milan. #LUFC pic.twitter.com/VeUn2Lt92d
Okafor and the boys, all sitting on their plane to Leeds.
Sat beside Noah is his brother Elijah, who was recently released by FC Lugano
in Switzerland. Behind him? Their carer/agent, presumably, and another guy with
the same chin beard. Maybe they met at the barbers and there was a spare seat.
The other Okafor brother, Isaiah, is also a professional footballer on the
books at FC Zurich after leaving Bayer Leverkusen’s youth team.
Leeds announced the arrival of Okafor late on Thursday
morning with an, erm, interesting teaser picture:
— Leeds United (@LUFC) August 21, 2025
Kind of sexy, kind of weird, right? I would’ve loved to be a
fly on the wall at that photoshoot as the photographer asks to take a shot of
Okafor’s neck, from above.
With Leeds travelling to Arsenal this weekend, time was of
the essence which means no private jet videos, but at least that was covered by
Romano.
How will they win us over?
Okafor’s greatest assets are his pace and ability to beat
defenders one–on-one. Leeds’ attack could do with a little more impact and
direct running, as well as benefiting from Okafor’s goal presence. His best
football at Milan came late in matches when they were chasing a goal and he’d
often drift between wide areas and the space behind a centre-forward.
If he can stay fit, it’s likely we’ll see a lot of Okafor
from the bench in the first half of 2025/26. It seems that Leeds are set on
building a squad right now, rather than simply a starting XI and a player like
Okafor is the type of risk that the club needs to take if they are to elevate
the crop of players as a whole and avoid the situation they found themselves in
during their last Premier League stint, when benches were often padded out with
Under-21s who had no real first team experience.
If Okafor can sit a few defenders down, score some goals and
give opposing managers something to think about when their players are tiring,
it might just be £18m well spent.