Samuel Chimerenka Chukwueze

A season with the club's B team was enough before he stepped up to the first team, and by the time he left Villarreal he had made 155 appearances and scored 21 goals. The high point came in 2020–21, when Villarreal won the UEFA Europa League and Chukwueze was named the competition's top assist provider that season.

AC Milan paid €28 million to sign him in July 2023, and he put pen to paper on a five-year contract. His time in Milan has been interrupted: in September 2025 he moved to Fulham on loan, switching to the number 19 shirt, and went on to make 25 appearances, scoring three goals and setting up four more. Fulham had an option to buy but chose not to take it up, and Chukwueze returned to Milan.

With Nigeria, he has earned 60 caps and scored seven goals since making his debut in a goalless draw against Uganda in November 2018, his first international goal following in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations quarter-final against South Africa. He reached the final of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, having already finished third in the tournament in 2019 and again in 2025. His international pedigree stretches back further still: as a teenager he won the FIFA U-17 World Cup with Nigeria in 2015, picking up the Bronze Boot along the way. In February 2024 he was made a Member of the Order of the Niger in recognition of his part in that AFCON final run.