FIFA WWC Kgatlana shows Oshoala what being the GOAT truly means

If Oshoala wishes to be recognised as the GOAT, she needs definitive performances against the powerhouses of the international game, the likes of which Kgatlana produced in this tournament

On Sunday morning, faced with the Netherlands in the 2023 World Cup Round of 16, South Africa striker Thembi Kgatlana gave a marvellous demonstration of centre-forward play.

The 27-year-old missed much of the last year owing to injury, but has been excellent for Banyana down under, scoring against both Argentina and Italy. Against the Dutch, who not only reached the World Cup final in 2019 but are one of the favourites this time around, the Racing Louisville forward produced a display of speed, timing, and intelligent movement, carrying the fight to the Europeans almost single-handedly at times.

It was quite masterful. It also did not matter in the slightest: the Netherlands came away 2-0 winners anyway.

Kgatlana’s performances have nevertheless shone a light on Asisat Oshoala, not just because she will, within the next 24 hours, face another World Cup favourite in England, but because she is widely considered the GOAT-in-waiting of Nigerian women’s football. While some are already content to anoint her thusly, the question of what exactly it would take for her claim to that epithet to be unimpeachable to all is an interesting one.

The best way to address that would be to ask another question: what is missing?

What hurts Oshoala’s GOAT credentials?

Already, Oshoala has won more CAF Player of the Year awards than anyone else, and has been nominated for the Ballon D’Or, a distinction no other African footballer has earned. She has also won three Women’s Africa Cups of Nations (WAFCON) titles, as well as multiple league titles and the UEFA Champions League with Barcelona. As far as base achievement goes, it is hard to pick any holes.

What is not there, however, is the sort of international tournament performance that Kgatlana has produced at this World Cup.

Sure, Oshoala has scored in three consecutive World Cups, a feat no other African player has achieved. However, impressive as that statistic sounds, it masks the reality that the performances themselves have been far from dominant… or even convincing.

Her iconic celebration against Australia stole column inches and cast her as the protagonist of that upset win, but she was only a second-half substitute, and the popular sentiment before her entrance was that the team’s attacking looked a lot more dynamic and fluid in her absence. Now, that goal proved important nonetheless, but a swallow does not a summer make.

Whisper it quietly, but the 28-year-old’s international career has been something of a letdown. Not since 2014 has she really taken a WAFCON by the scruff of the neck, and in her three World Cup outings, when tasked with the responsibility of lifting the team around her against more vaunted opponents, she has invariably baulked. 

It is fair to state that this is not entirely her fault; it rarely is when a player fails to translate club form to the international arena. However, that is the measure of the true greats: the ability to raise the level of the team around them when the chips are down, and to, in the heat of battle, impose their will regardless of limitation.

Oshoala: Underwhelming with Super Falcons despite advantages

If this feels like the bar is being set higher for her than for others, that is because, as the saying goes, much is expected from whom much is given. Compared to the likes of Mercy Akide and Perpetua Nkwocha, the other two who ostensibly come up in these considerations, Oshoala has had way more advantages. 

It is easy to forget this, but women’s football is in a far better position now than it was as recently as a decade ago. With the rise of professionalism, a product of increased funding and emphasis, it might as well be a different sport: fitness, tactical rigour, competitiveness and technical proficiency are all up. 

Oshoala is very much a product of that, a prodigy who has played in major leagues around the world, and is now excelling at Barcelona. Not only has she directly benefited from that, she is also, as a consequence, able to play with a higher calibre of teammate at international level; these are perks that simply were not available to the likes of Nkwocha, Akide, et al.

Also higher capacity foreign managers, as opposed to the likes of Edwin Okon, Ntiero Effiom and Eucharia Uche who, with the greatest of respect, were hardly in the vanguard of football management. No doubt, a player like Nkwocha would have loved the chance to work with the likes of Thomas Dennerby and Randy Waldrum; say what you will about them, but they were certainly more qualified than the ones she had during her playing days.

To be clear, it is completely fine to favour Oshoala in the GOAT discussion regardless. If you dismiss all context and insist on the facts such as they are, you can bludgeon your way, blunt-force style, to victory in such a debate. There are many firsts where the Barcelona forward is concerned, and her objective greatness is not in any doubt.

However, it is fair to, by the same token, point to Akide’s transformative impact at World Cups, and Nkwocha’s utter desolation of WAFCONs, and ask whether Oshoala’s bloodless processions with Barcelona in a frankly uncompetitive LaLiga stack up in the same way. This is, after all, the women’s game; unlike in the men’s, international football is not yet as over-commercialised, and is still (just about) the pinnacle of achievement and competitiveness. 

It is on that stage that she most needs to prove her greatness. To remove all doubt, Kgatlana’s excellence down under provides the blueprint. And here is another advantage Oshoala has in her favour: time.

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