Africa’s women football legend Asisat Oshoala of Nigeria is optimistic about blasting in more goals in her career after extending contract with FC Barcelona until 30 June 2024.
The 27 year old Super Falcons captain joined Barça on 31 January 2019, and has proven her enormous appetite in front of goal by banging in 80 goals in 101 competitive games to make her the 6th highest goalscorer in the team’s history.
In recognition of her achievement, Barca Femeni as FC Barcelona’s women football club are also known decided to reward the four time African Footballer of the year award winner with an extension to her contract, with the signing ceremony winnessed by the club president Joan Laporte in his office at Camp Nou.
Such presidential treatment didn’t go unnoticed for Superzee as Oshoala is also called:
“When you say a club is the best, it is not basically about the trophies, you look outside of football and see how the team treats their players.
“I think the management has done a great job in helping the players improve on and off the pitch.
“I think I’m really happy and excited to continue the journey with the best team in the world, obviously. Nothing to feel here but it’s just about a girl who has decided to stay at home.
“The goal of every player is to get to the next level. Every year, you want to smash some goals and after four years, you can say that it’s been a progression.”
Oshoala’s career progression at Barcelona has been a remarkable journey.
8 goals in 11 games during her loan spell in 2019 at the Spanish champions, automatically earned the AFCON winner a permanent deal six months later.
Her first full season brought in 19 goals in 30 games while a dip in form the flowing campaign, 2020/21, resulted in a meager 10 strikes in 9 league appearances.
Despite the slump in form which ushered in the final year of her previous contract, the Barca board still deemed it necessary to renew Oshoala’s deal for another two years:
“Four years ago, I was not like this and my mentality was different from what I have now. After three and a half years, I think I have learnt a lot, Oshoala said.
“I am very happy to continue with the world’s best team. Not just for the football, but because off the pitch they are also best at looking after players and helping them to continue improving.”
After copping a thigh injury while on international duty with Nigeria the former FC Robo striker is ruled out for the remainder of the season which she currently leads the goalscoring chart with 19 goals.
The nine time African champions, Nigeria, seemingly didn’t miss Oshoala when Falcons dismissed the Lady Elephants of Ivory Coast 3-0 over two legs last month to qualify for the Women Africa Cup of Nations.
However the captain’s addition to coach Randy Waldrum”s squad to the main tournament in Morocco later this year will be a moral boosting development.
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