BARBRA BANDA: THE COPPER QUEENS BALLER

IT is a thrilling experience to break records set by others in any field but it gets crazier when someone continues to break her own records, propelled by both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation especially on the turf considered alien to an athlete.

When Zambia Women football national team captain Barbra Banda set out to play football on the dusty streets of Lusaka and later at an all-boys academy as the only girl, most of her peers thought she was becoming insane because at that time, there was nothing to write home about women football in Zambia as soccer was hugely regarded as a preserve for men.

Barbra was born on 20th March 2000 in Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia. Her journey in football began at the age of seven when she started playing on the streets. Inspired by her father, who was also passionate about football, she received constant encouragement to practice.

In her formative years, she often played with boys since her academy lacked a girls’ team but this did not sit well with her mother because she saw football as a distraction on her studies and it did not make sense to her that her daughter was playing football with the boys.

Despite the strictness of her mother, Barbra’s dedication to the sport sometimes led her to sneak out of her home to pursue her passion.

“In fact I just used to run away. I just had to get my boots (from home) without the family knowing that I’m going to play football because if they knew, they wouldn’t allow me. I would throw my boots out of the window, then go out through the door. They would think I was just going outside, and then I would go round to get them,” Barbra says.

However, at the age of 16, Barbra’s football career took a different dimension as she went into boxing and momentarily hang up her boots. Inspired by compatriot Catherine Phiri who held a world title in 2016-2017, Barbra took a shot at boxing and became an instant sensation as she had the talent for it up her sleeve. She started as an amateur but quickly rose through the ranks to professional boxing and within a short period of time, racked up five straight victories in five professional fights.

However, despite this boxing success, she was not at peace within herself. As much as she put up everything in training, there was a part of her which believed boxing would not give her the satisfaction football offered. She admits that with the passing of time, she could no longer concentrate on boxing and ended up hanging her gloves for the beautiful game of football.

“My mind was too much into football so that’s why I couldn’t concentrate much on boxing. I told myself that I needed to go with the route I was more comfortable with and that is when I went back to playing football,” she reflects.

Her international journey began at the junior level when she represented the Zambia women’s national Under-17 football team in the 2014 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup, an impressive feat considering she was only 14 at the time.

On March 6, 2016, she made her debut for the senior national team in a 2016 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations qualification match against Namibia.

Her career took an international turn when she signed with the Spanish First-Division club EDF Logroño in October 2018. This move made her the first Zambian woman footballer to compete in Europe. During her time with the club, she scored an impressive 16 goals in 28 matches.

In January 2020, Barbra continued her journey by joining the Chinese Super League club, Shanghai Shengli. Her debut for the club in August 2020 saw her score her debut goal in that match. Over the course of the 2020 season, she demonstrated her scoring prowess by netting 18 goals in just 13 league matches. This exceptional performance earned her the 2020 Chinese Women’s Super League Golden Boot, recognizing her as the top goal-scorer in the league.

Her leadership and skills led her to captain the Zambian squad at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, marking Zambia’s first appearance in the international tournament.

During the Olympics, she etched her name in history by scoring a remarkable hat trick against the Netherlands. Despite the team’s loss, it was a historic moment in women’s football. In the subsequent group match, she repeated this extraordinary feat by scoring another hat trick against China.

She became the first woman footballer to achieve back-to-back hat tricks in Olympic history and the first to score two hat tricks in a single tournament. She also secured her place as Africa’s all-time top scorer in Olympic history. Notably, she was the leading goal scorer in the Chinese Women’s Super League in the same year.

September 2022 marked a significant milestone in her career when she led Zambia to their first-ever victory in the 2022 COSAFA Women’s Cup, the premier women’s international football tournament for national teams in Southern Africa.

Her outstanding performance on the field where she scored 10 goals, earned her the coveted Golden Ball Award.

In June 2023, Banda was named to the Zambian squad for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, and on July 7, 2023, she delivered a masterpiece of a remarkable performance, scoring two goals, including the game-winner in the 12th minute of injury time, leading the 77th-ranked Zambia to an astounding 3–2 upset victory against the second-ranked FIFA team, Germany. She was rightfully named Player of the Match for her outstanding contribution.

On July 31, 2023, she again named Player of the Match in Zambia’s first-ever win in a World Cup match against Costa Rica.

Barbra’s contributions to Zambian football have not gone unnoticed. She played a pivotal role in Zambia’s victory at the COSAFA Women’s Championship in 2022. Additionally, she achieved personal recognition by becoming the top scorer in the Chinese Women’s Super League in 2020 and repeating this feat at the 2022 COSAFA Women’s Championship.

Currently, Barbra is playing for Orlando Pride where she has set the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) on fire with her dazzling skills, scoring goals with ease and has proved to be a nightmare for defenders in the league.

Beyond her remarkable sporting achievements, Barbra is dedicated to making a positive impact off the field. In 2021, she established the Barbra Banda Foundation, aiming to empower women and girls by addressing issues such as economic inequality, Gender-Based Violence (GBV), lack of access to equal opportunities, teenage pregnancies, and early marriages through the power of sport.

The Foundation also hosts an annual football tournament. Furthermore, in 2019, Barbra joined Common Goal, pledging at least 1% of her salary to a collective fund that supports football charities worldwide.