Barcelona Femeni of Spain attacker, Assiat Oshoala has acknowledged that she has a tight race against two top rivals to emerge winner of 2019 Africa Women Footballer of The Year award next Tuesday, megasportsarena.com reports.
Speaking of her thoughts ahead of the award night in Egypt, Oshoala hailed the pair of fellow-contenders for the prize, Cameroon striker, Ajara Nchout and last year’s winner, South Africa’s Thembi Kgatlana, who she admitted equally deserve to get the latest continental crown.
However, the former FC Robo Queens of Lagos, Rivers Angels of Port Harcourt, Arsenal and Liverpool Ladies of England as well as ex-Dalian Quanjian of China ace confessed that she will love to win a record-equaling fourth title during next week’s event in The Land of The Pharaohs.
Ashe will be banking on her heroics of the year in review to earn her the prize, among which was becoming the first African to play and score in a UEFA Women’s Champions League final, which she did for Barcelona, for which she also scored 17 goals in 19 leagues matches in 2019.
However, despite being hopeful of becoming the second to be handed the continent’s prize four times, after Nigerian compatriot and former Super Falcons’ top striker, Perpetua Nkwocha, as she noted that Nchout and Kgatlana also have strong claims for the CAF Award’s female prize.
Kgatlana scored South Africa’s maiden FIFA Women’s World Cup goal in France, while Nchout struck twice to help Cameroon to back-to-back tickets into the round of 16 and earned a Puskas Award nomination for her wonder goal in the France 2019 Female Mundial.
Nonetheless, there is also strong hope for Oshoala, who scored the winner for Nigeria against South Korea to take the Falcons’ into the Women’s World Cup knockout stage for the first time in 20 years, and their second ever since playing the first edition of China 1990, yet she is staying modest and says any of the trio can win next Tuesday, because they have all made Africa proud.
Oshoala told Goal: “[Kgatlana and Nchout] are great players no doubt and doing very well for their various clubs which is very interesting. For me, it is about how African players have grown and how much awareness and impact they have made on the international scene.
“Before we don’t hear about African players, only Europeans. I am happy that during the last Women’s World Cup, a lot of African talents were discovered which was really good. Whatever the outcome, it is fine by me, I am going for my fourth one and I think it is a very good feat.”
