Zecira Musovic, the Sweden keeper who ended USA's three-peat hopes at the FIFA Women's World Cup, speaks about visualising her rise to stardom

There is an image that neatly encapsulates Zecira Musovic’s FIFA Women’s World Cup™, and the reaction to it.

The picture was captured, unsurprisingly, amid the heroics in that last-16 win over USA which thrust the Sweden keeper into the global spotlight.

Musovic is seen being mobbed by team-mates, who are the first – but by no means the last – to express awe-struck admiration at her single-handed defiance of the world champions. She would end the match having produced 11 saves, a single-game record at the Women’s World Cup, and her role in inflicting the Americans’ earliest-ever exit earned the keeper 100,000 new Instagram followers in a single, unforgettable evening.

Yet as jaws dropped, and those yellow-clad colleagues rushed to thank and congratulate her, that picture was, as the old adage goes, worth a thousand words. ‘No big deal’ was the unmistakeable message conveyed by Musovic’s expression and, while this assessment set her at odds with the watching world, it summed up the Sweden keeper’s outlook.

  • نویسنده : محمدمهدی اسماعیلی رها