The Brighton and Nigeria goalkeeper is highly critical of the decision to push back Wafcon, but still has hope for the future of the women’s game in Africa
Chiamaka Nnadozie has, at the age of 25, earned her place in the pantheon of African goalkeepers alongside legends such as Cameroon’s Thomas N’Kono and Morocco’s Zaki Badou.
Nnadozie featured at her first World Cup finals for Nigeria at 18, then played at the 2023 tournament and is the only goalkeeper to have won the Confederation of African Football’s (Caf’s) Golden Gloves award three times on the trot: in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Nnadozie, a reigning Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) champion, is delighted and amazed that she has come so far, so quickly.
“I’m very surprised,” the Brighton player says of that three-in-a-row record. “I never knew I was the only one, but it’s a morale booster for me. People only see the success, but they don’t see the hard work behind it. But it’s thanks to my coaches and my teammates. It was from a collective effort that one was able to achieve those things.”
Music and football are inseparable for Nnadozie, the undisputed DJ of the Super Falcons. During last year’s triumphant Wafcon campaign in Morocco, she always had a boombox on her shoulders as she strolled into the training grounds in Casablanca and Rabat, with music from the Afrobeat superstars Wizkid, Davido, Rema and Burna Boy (the England coach Sarina Wiegman’s favourite artist) piping hot from the speakers.
