Bay FC has completed the signing of forward Asisat Oshoala from Barcelona.

Bay FC has paid an undisclosed transfer fee to secure the services of the 29-year-old Nigeria international, whose Barcelona contract had been set to expire in June.

Oshoala has signed a contract through to the 2026 NWSL season with the option of a further year.

“To have the opportunity to add a player of Asisat’s quality, experience and winning pedigree to our roster is an exciting and important day for the club and the NWSL,” said Bay FC general manager Lucy Rushton. “She brings a top-class mentality to the field combined with pace and technical ability that allows her to lead the line, while also giving those players around her the license to be creative and thrive in space.

“Asisat is a proven goal scorer at the most elite levels of world football, and she comes here to continue that with Bay FC.”

Oshoala, a six-time African Women’s Footballer of the Year and two-time Ballon d’Or nominee, joined Barcelona in 2019 and scored 117 goals in 162 appearances for the club.

She is the fourth-highest scorer in Barcelona’s history, behind only Alexia Putellas, Jenni Hermoso and Sonia Bermudez. During her five years at Barcelona she won 13 major trophies; two Champions Leagues, four Liga F titles,…

We’ve had another landmark year for women’s football in 2023 — more record attendances, more prominence on television and, above anything else, a truly fantastic World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

While much of the progress in the women’s game over the last half-decade has been concentrated in wealthy Western countries, a notable feature of this World Cup was the improved performance of the outsiders.

First-time qualifiers the Philippines defeated New Zealand. Fellow debutants Haiti played some of the most exciting counter-attacking football in the tournament. Jamaica, meanwhile, recorded draws against both France and Brazil and reached the knockout stage for the first time.

“People expected really lopsided scores,” said Jill Ellis, who won the Women’s World Cup as manager of the United States in 2015 and 2019. “But we saw competitive games. People have asked me, ‘What’s your most inspirational moment?’. For me, it’s Morocco getting to the knockout round.”

The progress of the African nations was impossible to ignore.

Three of the four participants from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) advanced to the knockout phase. Nigeria shocked Australia to win 3-2 in Brisbane, one of the most memorable matches of the tournament. South Africa came from…

Victor Osimhen and Asisat Oshoala secured the 2023 African footballer of the year accolades at the annual Confederation of African Football (CAF) awards ceremony in Marrakech, Morocco.

Napoli striker Osimhen beat Egypt’s Mohamed Salah and Morocco’s Achraf Hakimi to the men’s award while Barcelona’s Oshoala picked up the women’s prize.

For the men’s award, it is the first time a Nigerian has been awarded the title since Nwankwo Kanu in 1999. Oshoala, meanwhile, retained the women’s accolade – the sixth time she has won it.

Osimhen enjoyed a hugely successful campaign with Napoli in 2022-23, helping them secure Serie A for the first time since 1990.

He scored 26 goals in 32 appearances last season, while the 24-year-old also netted five times in four Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualification matches, helping Nigeria reach next year’s finals.

Having participated in the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand this year, Oshoala, 29, successfully defended the trophy she claimed in 2022.

She emerged victorious over strong competition, including Thembi Kgatlana from South Africa and Racing Louisville, as well as Barbra Banda from Zambia and Shanghai Shengli.

Last season, Oshoala scored 27 goals in 40 appearances for Barcelona.

GO DEEPER

Analysing Victor Osimhen’s…

“They don’t treat us as if we are here to play for our country — they treat us as if we are slaves.”

These words were spoken by a member of Nigeria’s 2023 Women’s World Cup squad, describing her frustration with the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) and its treatment of the national team’s players.

More than six weeks on from their World Cup exit, The Athletic has spoken to multiple sources close to the Nigerian team for this article, all of whom asked to remain anonymous to protect their positions. Players claim they have received less than half of their daily camp wages and no match bonuses from the NFF. They have also yet to receive $60,000 (£49,000) of FIFA money owed to each player for reaching the round of 16, though that is not unexpected at this stage given the time it takes for FIFA to distribute the funds.

The team is working with FIFPRO, the international players’ union, to fight for payments owed to them by the NFF, some of which date back to 2021. FIFPRO said in a statement issued on August 8 that it will “continue to work with the players to ensure their contractual rights are honoured and the outstanding payments are settled”. The Athletic approached the NFF for comment on issues raised in this article but, at the time of publication, it has…

England head coach Sarina Wiegman held a piece of paper in her hand and peered down at a black iPad, held by England goalkeeping coach Darren Ward. To her left was her trusted assistant, Arjan Veurink. They were confirming the five players to take penalties after 120 minutes of football against Nigeria in the Women’s World Cup round of 16 had failed to produce a winner.

“We have talked about the psychology and execution of a penalty,” Wiegman said later. “This is the hardest pressure — when you have to take a penalty in front of 45,000 people. The consequences of missing or (you) score, it’s huge. So we have talked about that psychology as individuals and as a team. We just tried to prepare as well as possible.”

England have been working on their penalty-taking methods since well before winning the European Championship last summer.

Against Nigeria in Brisbane on Monday, their process started the moment the whistle blew to signal the end of extra time…

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‘Calm’ and ‘control’ before the shootout

The Dutch duo of Wiegman and Veurink went away to talk to the nine outfield players — with England having been one short following Lauren James’ 87th-minute red card for a stamp on Michelle Alozie.

They huddled up in a circle. Wiegman and Veurink positioned…

The 2023 Women’s World Cup gets under way in Australia and New Zealand on July 20, with the U.S. hoping to navigate an expanded 32-team tournament to become the first country to win football’s biggest prize three times in a row.

They are the favourites, but will the four-time winners actually pull off the ‘three-peat’? What of England, European champions but decimated by injuries to key players as they attempt to win the tournament for the first time? Will Germany bounce back from losing the final of the Euros to lift the game’s biggest prize?

How will the likes of France, Spain and Canada perform after their preparations have been disrupted by disputes with their federations over the past few months?

And can we expect any surprises from any of the eight countries — Haiti, Morocco, Panama, Philippines, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Vietnam and Zambia — making their World Cup debuts?

Our expert writers give their verdicts on what they think will happen over the next five weeks.

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Flo Lloyd-Hughes, women’s football reporter

Winner: Germany. This is a very open tournament and there are four or five teams that have a good chance of winning the title. Germany are often the masters of their own downfall, but given their disappointment at the Euros last summer and their…

Let’s start with a few fun facts. 

Asisat Oshoala has been African women’s footballer of the year five times. She has won the Africa Cup of Nations three times. She has two Golden Boots and two Golden Balls at international tournaments: two each at AFCON and the Under-20 World Cup. 

She was the top scorer in Spain in 2021-22 and last season, notched a personal-best 21 goals for Barcelona — accompanied by three assists, which was comfortably more than her team-mates.

In 2019, she became the first African woman to score in a Champions League final. Two years later she became the first African woman to win a Champions League title. A year after that, she became the first African woman to be nominated for the Ballon d’Or. 

We could go on. There will certainly be better players at this World Cup, but there won’t be many as exciting to watch, or indeed many with a more interesting career story, than Oshoala. 

Born in Ikorodu, a coastal city about an hour’s drive from the Nigerian capital Lagos, Oshoala wasn’t exactly encouraged to pursue her sporting dreams as a child. Her parents would frequently not give her any food if she disobeyed them and went to play football, considering it a waste of time. They wanted her to become a lawyer instead. 

But when she was…

In The Journey to the Cup, The Athletic tells the stories of players and teams as they work towards a place in the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Follow along as we track their progress as they prepare both mentally and physically for a chance to shine on the game’s biggest stage.

Uchenna Kanu lights up immediately at the mention of her dog, Luna.

“She’s got a really cute personality,” the Racing Louisville forward said, pulling up Luna’s Instagram on her phone. “She likes to cuddle, get under the blanket at night.”

Luna has been with Kanu since she was two months old. Luna is picky about her food. Luna only barks at noise or knocking on the door. Luna can do a lot of tricks. And Kanu is obsessed with Luna, as is the rest of Louisville’s roster.

It helps to have an extremely cute and smart dog to settle into a new place among new coworkers. “They want me to bring her to training every day. She’s so excited. She likes people,” Kanu said.

It also helps to be a good cook with a lineup of great Nigerian food in your pocket. Kanu said she watched her mom growing up and now loves to make food from home: Jollof, rice with stewed chicken, beans, plantains, and fufu, among others.

“We don’t really have a time where somebody teaches us how to cook or to measure…

The 2023 Women’s World Cup is almost here. It is the ninth iteration of the tournament and the biggest yet as, for the first time, 32 teams will compete for the trophy.

That means a new format with more matches and more players, as well as some new rules that have not been in operation before.

Here’s a primer ahead of the biggest women’s football tournament in history.

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The basics

What is the Women’s World Cup?

The FIFA Women’s World Cup is an international tournament that pits the best national sides against one another every four years.

Where is it being held?

The tournament is being played in Australia and New Zealand.

It is the first Women’s World Cup to be hosted across two countries and the first World Cup (regardless of gender) to be hosted across two confederations — Australia are part of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and New Zealand are part of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).

When is it?

The first two games of the tournament — New Zealand vs Norway and Australia vs Republic of Ireland — will be played on July 20.

The group stage will conclude with the final two games in Group H a fortnight later on August 3.

The knockout stage will begin on…

In The Journey to the Cup, The Athletic tells the stories of players and teams as they work towards a place in the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Follow along as we track their progress as they prepare both mentally and physically for a chance to shine on the game’s biggest stage.

Since rebranding in April 2021, there’s one thing that has been continuously synonymous with NJ/NY Gotham FC: pre-match fashion catwalks at Red Bull Arena. 

Two years ago, former Gotham defender Caprice Dydasco credited the squad (specifically former social media manager Andrea Nevil) with starting the trend. The catwalk has given players a chance to show their personal style while getting excited about the game. But the looks aren’t limited to the stadium. In February, some Gotham players posed for a photo at New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s mansion, making it clear fashion is at the forefront of the team’s identity.  

@GothamFC pic.twitter.com/NAsSI1cwTC

— Midge Purce (@100Purcent) February 3, 2023

For forward Ifeoma Onumonu, who was one of the players featured in the spur-of-the-moment photo, choosing an outfit and walking the runway is just another part of her pregame ritual. Sometimes she has a clear idea for her look and other times she puts an outfit together a few hours before the…