May 17, 2021

Asisat Oshoala has made history as the first African to lift the UEFA Women’s Champions League with club giants Barcelona.

The Catalonian side broke a 13-year dominance by French and German Champions League winners since Arsenal lifted the trophy in 2007.

Booming with some level of confidence after their triumph at Women’s Super League last week, the Spanish champions totally outclassed their English opponents by putting 4 goals past Mušović to record their first Champions League victory.

According to Goal.com, the 26-year-old who was recovering from an injury was introduced in the 71st minute and almost got her name on the score sheet but for the referee to rule out the goal for offside.

Goals from Alexia Putellas, Aitana Bonmati, and Hansen and an own goal from Melanie Leupolz’s confirmed the Spanish champions’ superiority all before the break.

Oshoala was instrumental in her side’s progression to the latter stages of the competition by registering goals against PSV and Fortuna Hjørring in the earlier stages.

She added a fifth goal in the closing stages of the game, although her effort was chalked off for her being in an offside position.

Before the game in Gothenburg, the four-time African Women’s Player of the Year claimed that Barca had learned from their final defeat to Lyon in 2019.

“Now, we have the experience of how European football is and also how a top game like this is played,” she told the media.

“I think we’re going to be better with our tactics this year, how we go out and play and everything.

“For us, it was good. We played in the final 2019, we lost and then we picked up corrections from there.

“Come May 16, against Chelsea, I don’t think we’re going to make the same mistakes again, because we already learned from the past. We are a better team now than we were two years ago.”

Chelsea boss Hayes expressed her disappointment as her team leaked two unfortunate goals.

Even at that, she revealed that the players will improve as a result of the experience.