Women football in Nigeria has seen great female footballers done the green and white jersey of Nigeria in the past, and many will still continue coming around as long as the national team remains, but in the main time, the queen of the national team is no other person than Oshoala.
However, the names of some Nigerian women footballers will never for once leave the mouth of the sport-loving Nigerian fans because of what they did for the nation and their personal achievement while still very much active playing for the Super Falcons.
Among of them, is this great player Mercy Akide, the former Super Falcons forward, who earned her nickname “Ske“, while playing with boys back then in Port Harcourt which means “Skinny“, is that reliable forward Nigerians loves to see lead the line for the Falcons.
In 2001, Mercy was named the first African women footballer of the year, and in 1999 and 2004 Mercy was named in the FIFA World All-Stars, played for Nigeria in three FIFA Women’s World Cups and also helped the Super Falcons to three African Women Championships titles in 1998, 2000 and 2002.
Another darling is Perpetua Nkwocha, she participated with the national team in seven CAF Women’s Championship back in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014. Which she won five of them in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2010 and 2014.
At the 2004 African Women’s Championship, Perpetual took the tournament by storm as she went on to score four goals in the final against Cameroon to help the Super Falcons win the title, and she also set a record of scoring 9 goals during the tournament and was named the best player of the tournament.
All of her achievements with the national team led her to be voted African Women’s Footballer of the Year in 2004, 2005, 2010 and 2011 by Confederation of African Football (CAF), amidst winning it back to back in 2004 and 2005.
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Cynthia Uwak is another fantastic player that has graced the Falcon’s flouring wing, winning accolades back to back in 2006 and 2007 while playing for the national team, Uwak played at the 2008 Olympics and the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Unfortunately for her, she missed out on the squad for the 2010 African Women’s Championship in South Africa due to injury, she also missed out on the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup the following year.
However, all of her injury misery didn’t hamper her chances back in the team, as the then coach of the national team Florence Omagbemi called her back to the team for the 2016 Africa Women Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
Asisat Oshoala who is currently the queen of Africa, and who is on the number of awards won with the former Super Falcons forward Perpetual Nwokocha, would go down memory lane with her current achievements, and perhaps even surpasses the records of her former colleague.
Oshoala’s growth to stardom began when she joined Liverpool Ladies, and was well-loved for her performance by the coach, fans and the board, as she was tipped to be one of the best young players in the world haven’t seen her did wonders while playing the opponents.
As much as we know that trading players between one club and the other are one thing, that the clubs can’t do without due to its importance and its need for the team, this led to Oshoala moving down to the Chinese league with Dalian Quanjian in February 2017.
However, her move to the Chinese league didn’t really go down well with the Nigerian fans, as some opined that she ought to have stayed back in mainstream Europe. In January 2019, Barcelona Femení signed Oshoala on a loan deal until the end of the season.
She was integrated into the team gradually, and as such, she took the opportunity and she scored Barcelona’s only goal in a 4-1 defeat to Lyon in the 2019 UEFA Women’s Champions League Final, a match that showed to the Barcelona board that she has something great to offer the team, in the end, Barcelona announced her full transfer to the club and extension until 2022.
All of this great performance for the Super Falcons and Barcelona got her nominated for the CAF Crown with the likes of Cameroon’s Ajarat Nchout, and South Africa’s Thembi Kgatlana who won the crown in 2018.
This year’s CAF award night in Egypt was graced with a lot of ex-African players even foreign players who are retired graced the CAF Award with their presence as the Super Falcon’s captain went ahead to snatch the prestigious award.
However, before the winner was announced, many were of the opinion that Ajarat Nchout also deserved to win the accolade haven’t done well at the FIFA World Cup in France, most especially with her fantastic goal against New Zealand, but in the end, it’s was Asisat that came out triumphant.
The aftermath of her triumph in Hurghada, Eygpt. Nigerians still can’t come to terms with why all five individuals selected from the country failed to make Asisat Oshoala their first choice for the award in the Women category.
Knowing fully well that Oshoala was the fans favorite to claim the fourth Player of the Year Award, as such many had expected her to get the full backing of her colleagues, but that wasn’t the case when CAF made voting pattern opened to the public just to see how the votings were being carried out.
Among those who were privileged to vote, which were five Nigerians, none of them picked Oshoala as their number one candidate, one out of the five, NFF Technical Committee member, Ahmed Yusuf, did not cast his vote. A clear sign she lost the votes that could have come from her own countrymen.
Even Perpetua Nkwocha, who had the opportunity, voted the Barcelona forward 5th. And after Oshoala was awarded the former Sunnanå SK forward wrote a congratulatory message on her Facebook page wishing her more success. The message was seen as being hypocritical by the Nigerian fans, as they felt she was being jealous of her achievements, or perhaps she didn’t want Oshoala equalling her CAF Award record.
Of all of the CAF Award mischief, Oshoala had moved on from that, by making a statement with her performance scoring fours goal for Barcelona in their 6-0 win against CD Tacon with barely four days after snatching the CAF Award.
Her brilliant performance against the Madrid based outfit was a big testament to what to expect from the queen of Africa his year, as she might probably be the first female player in Africa to win the Ballon d’Or. Only time will tell.
