Ibredrola League: Oshoala, new Bara star: “My parents don't want me to play football”

The Nigerian striker, who scored four goals against Tacn last week, lives at 25 years the best moment of his career.

I know I have a responsibility. I am young, I am 25 years old, and I have a lot of football left, but then I dedicate all my time to helping the girls of Africa. That they do not go through the difficulties that I go through, proclaims Asisat Oshoala (Ikorodu, Nigeria, 1994) and, from his cheerful present, reference of the feminine Barcelona, ​​which dominates the League, reviews a path that was full of obstacles. His school, his parents and loneliness, everything went against him and he went ahead with goals, with many goals, like the 14 that now place him as the second top scorer of the competition behind his partner Jenni Hermoso (18). In fact, the most logical thing is that he wouldn't have hit a ball in his life.

In my school (the School of the Forces Areas, in Lagos) there was no women's team, so I played with the boys when they left me. They usually put me on defense because they said I didn't know how to score, that I didn't know how to dribble, so at the end of a tournament, I took the ball, dribbled three rivals and scored a goal. We won 1-0. I remember that I told them: 'Now you know what I am capable of,' says Oshoala, who had to look for a women's team in nearby schools and ended up in the land field of St. Jude, just under a kilometer.

For a short time, the challenge was to hide his passion from his parents; For a longer time, the challenge was to convince them to let her live it. In a large house thanks to the family business of gold and clothing, Oshoala lives with her mother, her brothers and the wife and children of her father's other wife and was soon appointed as the rebel. Moreover, the discussions were soon unleashed.

Life in solitude

In my country many families do not want girls to play sports, there is still that mentality. Your main task is to get married and have children. My parents didn't want me to play football and above all they didn't want me to become a professional. When I signed at 18 for Rivers Angels (the best team in Nigeria) I had to move to Port Harcourt (600 kilometers from Lagos) and leave the studies and they were against it. To convince them I needed many hours of conversation, to reach agreements and, above all, to teach them that I was striving to fulfill my dream, recalls the battering ram. Then I promised them that if I did not succeed before the age of 20, they would forget the ball and study law. Then he began a life in solitude that continues today in Barcelona.

I've always ridden it in my own way and that's how happy I am. In Barcelona I have adapted very well, both to the city and to the team. At first it cost me more, because I focused on my game, but now I combine better with my companions. I think that this season we are all playing a better football than last season, Oshoala analyzes to which the 2014 U20 World Cup changed life. Although Nigeria lost the final against Germany, she was the top scorer of the tournament, the best player of the tournament and, a few days later, signed a contract with Liverpool that would make her the first African in the Premier League. It cost him the adaptation, a few months later he went to Arsenal and later to the Chinese Dalian Quanjian, but in Barcelona he fell to his feet.

In Duggan's post

Just a year ago, in January 2019, the Barca club hired her to cover the bad run of her battering ram then, Toni Duggan, and in the end Oshoala ended up as a starter in his position. This season, already adapted, is launched. Last week, without going any further, I scored four goals in the budding classic, the duel of Barcelona against Tacn that will soon be Real Madrid.

Now my parents are very happy with my performances, they are my biggest fans. Before, my mother didn't like football, I didn't want to know anything, and now she follows all my matches and tells me about them. I am very happy for his change in attitude, the footballer who has turned his bad childhood experience ends. With the money received from their different clubs, he first bought a new house from his parents in Lagos and then created a Foundation that helps Nigerian girls play football in their schools.

The objective is that they never lack the material, that teams are created, that the general mentality around them changes. And, he says, he is slowly getting it. Last Christmas, Oshoala invited several stars from the selection of his country, such as Kenneth Omeruo and Chidozie Awaziem, from Legans, or Ramn Azeez, from Granada, to a charity match under the motto Football 4 Girls and it was a success. In the stands stood out the many girls present and in the face of the organizer, the emotion to see them there.