da poker： The 20-year-old has shone in big games with Chelsea, Real Madrid and PSG this season, and will hope to do the same against England at Wembley

da 888casino： It felt like 2022 was going to be Rosa Kafaji’s year. Aged 18, she got her big move from relegation-threatened AIK to title-chasing Hacken, becoming the most expensive domestic transfer in Swedish women’s football history in the process. It came off the back of her first year in the top-flight, one which also included a national team call-up. She was primed for a breakthrough – until some incredible bad luck.

Six minutes into her first game for Hacken, Kafaji broke her leg. Suddenly, her 2022 changed entirely, characterised by eight months of rehab and featuring just two appearances for her new club in all competitions. But her response to such a setback spoke volumes. “A winner always comes back,” she said. And she has.

Instead, 2023 was Kafaji’s year. She enjoyed a superb domestic season with Hacken, ending it as the club’s top goal-scorer, and she continued that form into her team’s Champions League campaign. Scoring in both of Hacken’s group stage wins over Real Madrid, her performances helped to seal an unlikely place in the quarter-finals.

“It was hard,” Kafaji said of her time on the sidelines. “It was my first game with Hacken that I got injured and you just want to show yourself, in the beginning especially. But I feel like… It was a year I was injured and I took it by analysing more, I became smarter, I became stronger because I was in the gym so much.”

All that hard work is showing now – and not just at club level. A Sweden debut was another milestone Kafaji hit in 2023, and she has been catching the eye plenty since, netting a first senior international goal at the beginning of this year.

On Friday, she’ll tick something else off that is on the bucket list of most footballers when she gets the chance to play at Wembley, as Sweden start their qualifying campaign for the 2025 Women’s Euros away to England. The Lionesses will need to be wary of many top talents in the opposition’s squad, and 20-year-old Kafaji is absolutely one of them.

GettyWhere it all began

Incidentally, Kafaji could’ve been playing for the Lionesses in this fixture. According to the feature on her a few years ago, that is where she was supposed to be born, with her parents residing in England in the early 2000s after fleeing Iraq during the war with Iran in the 1980s. However, it was instead in Sweden that she grew up and discovered her love of football, after her older brother, Ali, had introduced her to the game.

Via Kallhalls FF and Bele Barkarby IF, Kafaji ended up at AIK and developed through the club's academy until making her senior debut aged 15. A year later, her goals helped fire the team to promotion to the Damallsvenskan. Once there, it felt like a matter of time until a big club snapped her up and, in the end, it took only until the end of her first top-flight season.

Kafaji might’ve suffered an immediate setback with Hacken with that leg break, but she has bounced back brilliantly, scoring 12 league goals in a 2023 season that saw the club miss out on the title by a goal differential of one.

“I mean, I wouldn't say that I'm surprised,” she replied, when asked by GOAL about her lightning-fast return to form. “I would say that it was just a matter of time for me to show it because I know what qualities I have. But at the same time, I'm still going to stay humble because I'm still a work in progress and I haven't made it to the top yet.”

AdvertisementGettyThe big break

It has been in the Champions League that Kafaji’s name has really started to cut through, though. She scored three goals and assisted another in Hacken’s six group-stage fixtures to help them upset the odds and reach the last eight, beating Real Madrid and Paris FC, who eliminated Arsenal and Wolfsburg in qualifying, to a spot in the knockout rounds. Even in the games that she didn’t register a goal involvement, Kafaji caught the eye, including in an admirable goalless draw Hacken battled for against English champions Chelsea.

When GOAL asked if her time on the sidelines has made her hungrier, the 20-year-old was adamant. “100 percent, I would say that,” she said. “If you ask anyone that's been injured, when they come back, there's so much more hunger because you haven't done what you love to do and now you appreciate it more.”

GettyHow it's going

After adding to those group-stage goals with an effort against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League quarter-finals, despite Hacken’s eventual defeat to the French giants, Kafaji’s breakthrough has continued on the international stage.

She netted her first goal for her country in a Nations League play-off with Bosnia and Herzegovina, confidently sitting the goalkeeper down and rounding her to finish after bursting through the defence, and her aim is to continue to make an impact at national-team level, to the point that she can be a regular in the starting XI.

GettyBiggest strengths

Kafaji’s technical ability has always stood out, with it no surprise to hear that she watched a lot of Ronaldinho when she was growing up. Her technique is wonderful, she is excellent with both feet and she has a great first touch. The 20-year-old added physicality to her game while she was recovering from her broken leg, too.

What is perhaps most impressive about Kafaji is that she is a creative presence and a goal-scoring threat in equal measures. Though operating as a No.10 and mainly tasked with carving out chances, she also has fantastic movement of her own to be on the receiving end of a great opportunity to score, and she is a super finisher to boot.