The Barça player, second top scorer of the Primera Iberdrola, at the age of 25. She has her entire country and her continent at her feet and the Primera Iberdrola, where she never tires running and scoring goals with Barça.
Nigerian forward Asisat Oshoala was named best African player of the year. This award was already hers on three other occasions (2014, 2016, and 2017). That makes her the second footballer in history, along with her compatriot Perpetua Nkwocha, in winning the African Ballon d’Or in so many editions. An award granted by the African Football Confederation (CAF), in which Ajara Nchout, who is currently a member of the Norwegian League, and the South African Thembi Kgatlana, from the Chinese Super League, won the majority of the votes issued by the selectors and captains of the member countries.
Oshoala can boast of being the only Barça player who knows what it is to score a goal in a Champions League final. The striker arrived in Spain just a year ago, in January 2019, from the Chinese Dalian Quanjian FC, on loan. There, she was established as the top scorer of the championship in 2017, showing her quality in the rival area, which leads her to be lethal thanks to her speed, power, and verticality.
Before finding a place among the elite of world women’s football, the Nigerian had to work very hard. Born in 1994 in the coastal city of Ikorodu, on the island of Lagos, her parents did not see with good eyes that she always wanted to be with a ball at her feet.
As she has already commented in several interviews, her mother would not give him money to buy food if she went to play football, so many times she went to bed hungry but happy. In her country, the ‘logical’ thing is for a woman to finish school, get married, and have children, but she chose another path, to pay attention to what her heart dictated.
Her parents insisted that she continue studying, but she made a deal with them: if she didn’t do well with soccer in two years, she would leave it and start studying law. In her family, they could afford it. She enlisted in the ranks of the modest FC Robo before signing for Rivers Angels, one of Nigeria’s leading teams, where the doors of the U20 team were opened to him.
A showcase that she knew how to take advantage of. She was elected the best World Cup player in the category, being the tournament’s top scorer with seven goals. The following year, in 2015, she was one of the highlights in the absolute World Cup in Canada, months after having led her team in the African Women’s Championship, where she was again named MVP of the tournament, making a decisive goal in the victory against Cameroon in the final.
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Liverpool and Arsenal Exploits
Oshoala seemed predestined to shine with a ball at her feet. After these exhibitions, the doors of Europe were opened to him for the first time, signing for Liverpool in 2015. The following season she went to Arsenal until she packed her bags to China, where she swelled to score goals, excellent performances that drew attention in Barcelona. As soon as she arrived in Spain, she suffered an injury to her left leg, from which she recovered in such a way that she immediately won the title.
It came as a winter reinforcement for the assault on the League and the Champions League last year, but the Nigerian has become essential in the scheme of the culé team. Renewed until 2022 after leading her country in the World Cup in France, where they lost to Germany in the round of 16, in this year that she has been in the ranks of Barça, she has scored 21 goals in 29 games.
Off Field Life
In addition to being a leader in the field, she is also a leader outside. The forward was named a member of the Order of the Niger in 2014, being the second footballer behind Joseph Yobo, who is part of a list full of emblems of Nigerian society.
Also, every year when the season ends, she returns to her country where she organizes a competition for the little ones in her city, taking the opportunity to get closer to families and emphasize that you can be a girl and play soccer, as she has shown with you grow.
