Why Asisat Oshoala Might Be Underrated
I’m Nigerian, and I love football. Despite pointing it out, this is quite the norm in my country. We are a football country of over 200 Million people. By conventional logic and probability, we should be among the best soccer-playing nations in the world. The truth, though, is anything but.
We might be the torch-bearers of the continent when it comes to World Cup appearances and the frequency of knockout appearances. However, four African teams have made the quarter-finals of the male event, and, most recently, Morocco surprisingly made the semi-finals. On the other hand, Nigeria has yet to conquer the round of sixteen after three appearances at that level.
According to fans and administrators alike, the common culprit is poor coaching. If you ask me, our players are just not good enough, considering our population and disposition towards the beautiful game. In other words, we should have more world-class players; not having them is our fault.
We don’t have the infrastructure and resources to develop ANY sports, and the national managers of our football pyramid are more comfortable fighting over scraps than building anything substantial. That said, we stumble upon some very good players and then some very, very good ones.
We have one such striker now. His name is Victor Osimhen. He plays for Napoli and is being valued at over 100 million euros. Pretty big, right? But this article isn’t about Victor Osimhen (there are many of those already). This article is about the female equivalent, Asisat Oshoala.
Great Expectations?
To every Nigerian football lover, she was expected to be the saving grace of our constantly flailing Super Falcons, and for a while, she was. However, the biggest stages cannot be dominated so easily.
Like many truly spectacular players turning out for relatively unspectacular countries at international tournaments, she has found that the going gets unbearably tough the closer she gets to the top. Until recently, she had helped us continue our tradition of winning the WAFCON, but the Super Falcons have yet to survive a World Cup group. Nowadays, her relationship with the national team has been tumultuous, to say the least.
All of this hasn’t affected her in any way regarding Europe. She plays for Barcelona, a team that is ultra-dominant by every metric of the female game. Consider this: at the time of writing, that Barcelona team has scored 108 goals so far in the Spanish Liga F and conceded just 5. The league’s next best goal-scoring and defensive team is Real Madrid, with 76 and 22, respectively. The Barcelona Femeni team is miles ahead of the domestic competition, and she contributes to that.
Yet, despite her contribution (In the form of bucketfuls of goals every season), widespread recognition and awards in the European game continue to evade her, much to the chagrin of Nigerian and African fans who feel she deserves more. The question then is why she is allegedly overlooked.
The Barcelona Mob
For starters, she plays for a team capable of beating every other team without her. Her Barcelona team is exceptionally well-stocked across all positions, and the team’s strength becomes more apparent when you factor in that their dominance has come even as they freely rotate their squad to cope with the perils of a competitive season on multiple fronts. Due to the rotations, only one Barcelona player has so far managed to surpass 1700 minutes in the league this season.
That, however, is not the reason for Asisat’s inability to stand out enough. The blame (if we could characterize it as such) would lie at the feet of the creative maestros playing behind her in midfield. Two of them are worthy of mention in this conversation: Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmati.
Both are exceptionally gifted midfielders and in a team of widespread, ever-winning talent, it’s no surprise that the technically gifted stand out the most. Alexia Putellas is the reigning two-time Ballon d’Or holder. Bonmati is widely tipped to succeed her this year, but nobody is talking about Oshoala, even though she is the best striker of seemingly the best team in the world.
African fans of Oshoala do not follow the women’s game as obsessively as they do the men’s game, and her stats tell the only stories they know of. In reality, some arguments might not even place her among the top 3 players on her team.
In addition to the above two, any listing of the best Barcelona players (not considering recent form or injury absences) might still have to factor in some other players. There’s Caroline Graham Hansen, arguably the best winger in the world when fit, and Fridolina Rolfo, currently playing like the female answer to whatever legendary attacking fullback the men’s game considers its greatest marauder. Such a mob of attacking talent has the potential to make gaudy numbers count for less, if not render them completely insignificant.
Making a Case for Asisat
The case for Asisat is easy to make once you look at the Domestic and European goal charts. Despite playing significantly fewer minutes than the players around and above her, she’s ranked second in both. This is no fluke; her expected goals back up her goal-scoring form (she’s top for both).
The sheer number and quality of the scoring positions she finds herself in means she also ranks top for total non-penalty goal contributions in both the Champions League and the domestic Liga Iberdrola. Allow every other competing player to keep their penalties, and she still sits at the top.
I have pointed out the dominance and quality of this Barcelona team (They won the Champions League two years ago, made the final last year, and are in the final again this year). Now, consider that she leads the team in league goals so far, racking up 10 more goals than the second-ranked Claudia Pina (who’s also having a great statistical season, all things considered). Expand the rankings to factor in assists (total goal contributions), and nothing changes.
More significantly, though, is what the underlying expected goals and assists numbers have to say about her place in the team. Based on underlying performance, Asisat Oshoala should have an expected gap in goal contributions of about 11 (in all competitions) over Aitana Bonmati, even after playing about 500 minutes less than her illustrious teammate. In actuality, the gap is just one.
Some of the difference involves Bonmati outperforming her expected assisted goals by 8 (by virtue of strong finishing from teammates or poor goalkeeping). Still, most of it concerns Oshoala herself, leading us to the potential case(s) against her.
What’s wrong with her game?
She’s fast, strong, and persistent up front. However, for all the goals that she’s put away this season, she is currently underperforming her expected goals across all competitions by 3.6.
Her supporters would probably point to how she’s still their joint top scorer (along with Bonmati) in a Champions League season (that looks very promising) and how not all great strikers are expected goals overperformers, and they would be right. However, that doesn’t change the fact that she’s finishing at a worse clip than the numbers suggest she should be.
That said, she’s matching Bonmati for goal efforts in the Champions League with almost 350 fewer minutes under her belt and is joint third for total goal contributions in the competition. If you look at the underlying numbers, she’s first in non-penalty expected goals and assists for her team in the competition.
In summary, her superpower seems to be getting into great goal-scoring positions, but she’s not finishing them well this season. Unfortunately, FBref doesn’t have Liga Iberdrola data from previous seasons, so it’s hard to determine whether this is a one-season blip or the underperformance is the norm.
Such seeming wastefulness is not the only reason she might not get more recognition. There’s also the issue of consistency this season. According to FBref, Oshoala scored 3 league goals across the first 9 match weeks of the domestic season but has proceeded to plunge 17 in the last 9, including a run of 14 goals in 7 games and 3 hattricks in 12 days at some point this year. Great rebound effort after a poor start to the season, but more equitable goal distribution arguably serves teams better and does long-term reputations more good.
Finally, and most damningly, considering the team she plays for, is her playing style. Where she’s all sharp angles, seemingly boundless pace and energy, and penalty-box poaching, the top of the female game (especially at Barcelona) is littered with technically exceptional players like Putellas and Bonmati (and Jennifer Hermoso before them).
In other words, she fails the eye test against her teammates. It is hard to receive plaudits for goals scored when the architects of play behind you can produce game-changing numbers of theirs while looking silky smooth in the process as well. Maybe if she outscored her expected goals, she would be respected more, but that’s not the case.
An argument can be made that simply being the best striker on arguably the best team in the business doesn’t make one deserving of more recognition, but her ability to outperform everyone else in her position while barely logging half the possible minutes goes beyond just being a good striker.
As pointed out earlier, she’s the second-highest goal scorer in Liga F, but she has played over 900 minutes less than the top scorer (Alba Redondo) and scored just 4 goals less. In fact, she’s fourth in the league for goal contributions but has played at least 850 fewer minutes than everyone above her. One of the players above her in the ranking (Caroline Weir: 17 goals, 12 assists, and a two-footed wizardry of elegant touches and dribbles) is considered a front-runner for the Ballon d’Or this year, according to some publications.
As is the case when ranked among her teammates, though, she tops the league for total expected goals and non-penalty expected goal contributions. However, everybody seems to benefit from some overperformance in one area or another, while she fails to overperform in the one area she has the most power over: goal-scoring.
Where is She Ranked Among the Game’s Best Forwards?
She’s incredibly good at positioning herself to shoot and is fairly good at scoring goals. Her work over the past couple of seasons has seen her finish 3rd and 9th in GOAL50 rankings for the best female players in the game for 2021 and 2022, respectively. If she makes the list this year, it would be interesting to see where she finishes.
That said, having made the Ballon d’Or 30-woman shortlist last year (and finishing 16th), she’s enjoying an arguably better season in front of goal but wasn’t considered worthy of GOAL’s Ballon d’Or Power Ranking a few weeks ago. Ahead of her (among forwards playing in Europe) in the estimation of the respected publication were Caroline Weir, Ewa Pajor, Sam Kerr, Khadijah Shaw, Alexandra Popp, and Kadidiatu Diani.
Without considering the logic used in constructing such a list, it’s worth noting that, except for Pajor, she leads the other forwards on the list in Champions League goals despite logging the fewest minutes of those participating in the competition. She is also first (by the smallest of margins) in expected goals ahead of Pajor and first in expected non-penalty goal contributions.
Accounting for the playing time difference, Asisat Oshoala has contributed 1.52 goals and assists per 90 to Pajor’s 1.10. None of the other aforementioned members of this prestigious list has more than 0.7 per 90. In fact, it’s nearly impossible across domestic leagues and the Champions League to see a front-runner for the prestigious award that has contributed such world-class production, even without factoring in her relatively limited playing time.
Final Points
The universe willing, she may be able to prove herself superior to the Polish forward (Pajor) as both their clubs face off in the Champions League Final. However, it’s unlikely that the Ballon d’Or dreams of either would survive the World Cup test that comes later in the year. Poland is not going to the World Cup, and Nigeria is…Nigeria.
This isn’t an argument for Asisat Oshoala to win a Ballon d’Or, though; This is an argument that her immense contributions to winning football games are slightly underrated. If the problem were playing time, you’d have to wonder why an apparent goal-magnet of a forward is not playing more. If the problem is the relative unpalatability of her playing style compared to some of the more touted names in female football, potential reasons multiply.
Maybe the female game is yet to fully appreciate the ruthless offensive efficiency that has seen a football purist like Pep Guardiola amend some of his footballing principles for a pure goalscorer like the touch-shy Erling Haaland this season.
Maybe Oshoala’s numbers would guarantee her more regard if the female game was more competitive and the aesthetic brilliance of technicians less overshadowed the finer margins guaranteed by a dedicated goal-getter. Maybe she would be better appreciated if her National team could perform competitively at a World Cup. We would never know, but before you classify her as being all about goals, remember that she’s a center forward.
Follow me on Twitter @MohammedAOlaore
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