Naomi Girma almost had to quit soccer as a young, budding star in the Bay Area. The reigning National Women’s Soccer League Defender and Rookie of the Year discussed her Ethiopian heritage, the “village” that helped contribute to her soccer success and more on the latest My Favorite Futbolista Podcast.
Girma, who plays for the San Diego Wave, is a first-generation American, with both of her parents being immigrants from Ethiopia. Girma explained that her mother came for school, but her father had to flee the country after fighting against a dictatorship.
“Him and the younger generation, they were not putting up with it. They were fighting, and he had to flee the country,” Girma explained. “I’m older than when they left, which is so crazy to me.”
As a young kid growing up in the San Jose area with her brother Nathaniel, Girma fell in love with soccer when her father, Girma Aweke — in Ethiopian culture, the children take the father’s first name as their surname — formed Maleda Soccer Club for the region’s Ethiopian community….
