By Yemi Babalola, Lagos
Our amazon for the week is no other than Nigerian female football star Desire Oparanozie, who has been spectacular for the national team and her club side. She is still very active for both club and country and never disappoints whenever she is on the pitch of play.
Oparanozie was born in Owerri, the capital of Imo state in the Eastern part of Nigeria on December 17 1993. She was named Ugochi Desire Oparanozie. Just like most sport athletes, she developed interest in football from an early age and pursued her interest until she signed to Bayelsa Queens until 2010. During her time at Bayelsa Queens in 2010, she featured in the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup and scored 2-goals in tournament and Nigeria won silver medal after losing by 2-0 to Germany the host nation.
After which Oparanozie moved to another Nigerian Women Football league side, Delta Queens where she spent 2-years, and won the Nigerian Women’s Championship with the side in 2011 and 2012. From where she went to a two months loan to the Turkish women’s first football league to play for Duvenciler in 2011. During the year, she featured for the Female national team, the Super Falcons at the FIFA Women’s World Cup held once again in Germany but Nigeria did not progress from the group stage.
By 2012, she joined a Russian Women’s Football Championship side Rossiyanka, with whom she played at the 2012/2013 UEFA Women’s Champions League. She featured 11 times for this side and was able to score 2-goals. The following year she signed for Wolfsburg but did not get enough playing time; this made her leave the side after half a season. Oparanozie joined Turkish side Ataşehir Belediyespor and scored 6-goals in 7-appearances for the side.
Oparanozie moved to French side Guingamp in 2014, which is also the current side she plays for; she has featured 37 times for the side and scored 22 goals.
Overall, for the female national team Oparanozie has had 35 appearances and scored 22 times, one of which was the superb free kick against Cameroon in the 2014 final of the African Women’s Championship. A tournament where she was the highest goal scorer with 5-goals. She was also part of the winning 2010 and 2016 Super Falcons who won the African Championships. Just recently, when the Falcons played Gambia in a two-legged tie to pick a ticket for the next African Women’s Championship, she scored a double brace in the return leg at the Agege stadium.
Oparanozie idolizes Mercy Akide, Abby Wambach, Wayne Rooney and Zlatan Ibrahimović, which explains the passion we see in her whenever she is on the pitch of play. We wish her more successes on and off the pitch. We wrap this write up with her quote after winning the African Women’s Championship Golden Boot, ‘’ I’m not particularly about individual accolades. It’s an honour, no doubt, but what’s more special is winning the trophy for the team.’’
