Bay FC of USA striker, Asisat Oshoala will be all out to make history with her club this Saturday, as they go out for their last match in the National Women Soccer League (NWSL) regular season.
Although the six-time African Woman Footballer of The Year and her colleagues will play away to Houston Dash at Shell Energy Stadium, they know that a win or draw will take them into the league’s play-off zone.
Sports247 reports that it would be a remarkable feat for Bay FC in their very first season among USA’s top-flight and another feather added to Oshoala’s cap.
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Bay FC enter the game sitting eighth on the table with 31 points, which puts them in pole position for a play-off spot once they can avoid defeat in their first match after the international break.
The fire, zeal and desire for glory is still burning hot for Oshoala; as she continues hitting bullseyes in the twilight of her career and is her club’s top scorer with seven goals from 22 games.
However, she failed to score in her club’s last two matches, both at home, as they lost the first 1-0 on October 12 and won the next on October 19th with the same scoreline, but she was replaced in the 66th minute.
Nonetheless, all eyes will be on Oshoala, who scored the club’s first ever competitive goal at the start of the season, she is their biggest international star and her haul of seven beauties is still unmatched by anyone else in the squad.
Two of her goals came from penalties, three from her last four games and two in away matches, thereby giving Bay Area fans great expectations of another heroic night from their Nigerian dazzler.
She is now playing far from the glitter of Europe and in the penumbra of the United States, but that does not take anything away from the impact she keeps making among football fans.
Indeed, Oshoala is still making waves in her own little way, though she is no longer a sure starter in Nigeria’s women’s national team, Super Falcons.
She recently affirmed that, though she is now 30 years old and no longer as vibrant as she used to be, the lass, who was born October 9, 1994 in the Ikorodu suburb of Lagos, says she is not thinking of quitting.
For the fleet-footed gazelle fondly called ‘Agba-Baller,’ retirement is not yet on her mind, because she wants to continue proving that she is not tired of scoring beautiful goals.
That was one thing she did with aplomb during five successful years with FC Barcelona Feminine of Spain, where she first played on loan from Dalian Quanjian of China.
She arrived at Camp Nou in 2019, after just two years with Quanjian, which she joined in 2017, and it was at Barca that she enjoyed her longest spell with any club.
It was during her years with the female Catalans that ‘Super Dee’ romped home 117 goals in 162 games and helped them win the domestic league title on a prolific basis.
It was with Barca that she also pulled off a historic feat of three straight UEFA Women’s Champions League titles, which established her further as a damsel with many ‘first of its kind’ laurels to her name.
The biggest of those tags is the fact that she is the first player to win six continental tags for either male and female players in Africa, as well as a multiple haul of most valuable tags in flagship competitions.
Her first conquest of the African Woman Footballer of The Year prize came in 2014, after she top scored at the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup. She then went on to claim the same accolade in 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2023; thereby completing a remarkable and unprecedented sextet.
Dramatically, her last feel of the AWPOY award came a year after she became the first African lady to be nominated for the illustrious Ballon d’Or Feminin in 2022 … which was two years before she decided on heading out to God’s Own Country to wind down her career.
Seeing her join Bay FC in USA’s National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) might have come as a shock to many of Oshoala’s fans, but those with a wizened eye in football matters would concur that it was the right move for an amazon who has seen everything about football where it matters most.
Her career criss-crossed from her early days at FC Robo Queens of Lagos (2009-2913), to Rivers Angels of Port Harcourt (2013-2015), then to England with Liverpool (2015-2016) and Arsenal (2016-2017) before her adventure in China at Dalian Quanjian (2017-2019).
Aside her massive haul of 92 goals for Barcelona, Oshoala also had three to flaunt in just nine games with Liverpool and two from 11 games at Arsenal, plus a dramatic record of having scored for Nigeria at three straight editions of the FIFA Women’s World Cup (2015, 2019 and 2023).
She was also captain of the Falcons for a while and the poster girl for a couple of ceremonies to unveil the Nigerian joint national teams’ jerseys, as produced by American sports kit giants, Nike.
However, no footballer can keep playing forever and most of them fade out gradually once they clock 30. So, ‘Super Dee’ is facing the reality that she is not as good as she used to be, which must have accounted largely for her move to Uncle Sam’s country.
However, as she moves nearer to that moment when she will throw in the towel and say ‘Nu mas,’ Oshoala is already laying the ground for the production of many of those who should step into her shoes.
That is one of the missions and visions she embarked upon some years back, with the establishment and expansion of Asisat Oshoala Foundation 4 Girls.
The project was birthed at Bishop Aggrey Memorial Grammar School, where Oshoala cut her football teeth playing under Coach Emmanuel Osahon in Ilasamaja area of Mushin, Lagos, but it has since snowballed into a multi-faceted venture that once caught the eye of Nigeria’s first lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu.
This simply means the stage is already been set for Oshoala to transform from player to promoter once she eventually calls it quit with soccer.
When will that be? Keep guessing.
