Asisat Oshoala Nigerian Footballer Born 1994 in Ikorodu

Early life

Asisat Oshoala was born on 9 October 1994 in Ikorodu, in Lagos State, Nigeria. She went to Air Force Primary School on Victoria Island and then to Aunty Ayo International School in Ikoyi, both in Lagos. She left school to concentrate on football. She stands 172 centimetres tall and plays as a forward.

Career

Oshoala's club career began with FC Robo in Lagos, where she played from 2009 to 2013. She then moved to Rivers Angels, with whom she played from 2013 to 2015 and won Nigerian domestic trophies. In parallel she progressed through the national set-up. She was part of the Nigeria women's under-20 team from 2012 to 2014, and in September 2013 she was called up to the senior squad for a friendly against Japan. She has represented the senior team since 2013.

Her first move abroad came in January 2015, when she joined Liverpool, becoming the first African player to take part in England's Women's Super League. A knee injury kept her out for two months, but she scored three goals in nine matches. In March 2016 she signed for Arsenal and helped the club win the FA Women's Cup final that May. In February 2017 she went to China to join Dalian Quanjian. She scored twelve goals in her first season, which brought the league title and the league's Golden Boot, and the club won the championship again in 2018.

Barcelona signed her on loan in January 2019 and made the transfer permanent in May. She scored in the 2019 UEFA Women's Champions League final, the first African player to do so. In 2019-20 she scored twenty goals in nineteen appearances. In May 2021 Barcelona beat Chelsea in the Champions League final, making her the first African woman to win the competition. She went on to win the Pichichi Trophy as the top scorer of the Spanish league's Primera División, another first for an African woman. Across her years at the club she made 162 appearances and scored 117 goals, ranking her fourth in the club's history for goals. She left in 2024 after winning fourteen trophies.

On 1 February 2024 she joined Bay FC in the United States and scored the only goal on her debut against Angel City. In September 2025 she signed with Al Hilal in the Saudi Women's Premier League.

For Nigeria, Oshoala was a key player at the 2014 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup, where she scored seven goals. She was a member of the squad that won the African Women's Championship in 2014, 2016 and 2018. She scored at the 2015 and 2019 Women's World Cups and again at the 2023 tournament against Australia, which made her the first African to score at three different Women's World Cups. She was vice-captain at the 2019 tournament.

Recognition

At the 2014 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup she won both the Golden Ball for best player and the Golden Boot for top scorer. She has been named African Women's Footballer of the Year several times, including in 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2022. The records list twenty-three awards in her name. In 2015 she won the BBC Women's Footballer of the Year award. In September 2014 she received the Order of the Niger from Nigeria's president at the time, Goodluck Jonathan, and in 2021 she was included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. In August 2022 she became the first African woman nominated for the Ballon d'Or Féminin.

Public roles

Oshoala is a brand ambassador for Nike. In 2019 she founded the Asisat Oshoala Foundation, which works to empower girl footballers in Africa and organises the annual Football4girls tournament in Lagos. In 2021 she was appointed to FIFA's technical advisory group on the growth of women's football.