Khadija “Bunny” Shaw, the perfect striker in ladies’s soccer
On the tail finish of probably the most aggressive season within the historical past of the Girls’s Tremendous
League (WSL) – the premier ladies’s soccer league on the planet – Jamaican soccer
famous person Khadija “Bunny” Shaw has virtually single-handedly shot Manchester Metropolis into
competition for the title.
At solely 26 years previous, her record-breaking performances have
many tipped her to be the perfect striker in ladies’s soccer for a while, and in March
she was named Barclays Girls’s Tremendous League Participant of the Month.
Born and raised in Spanish City, Jamaica, Shaw left residence to attend Japanese Florida
State Faculty the place she earned NSCAA first-team Nationwide Junior Faculty Athletic
Affiliation All-America honors in 2016.
Shaw’s prolific type in entrance of the objective is nothing new. Earlier than plying her commerce in
England, the Reggae Woman frequently discovered the web for the French membership FC Girondins de
Bordeaux. Through the 2020/2021 season within the D1 Arkema Division 1 Female, Shaw
completed joint high goalscorer, however was pipped for the golden boot by Marie-Antoinette
Katoto who performed for the French powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain.
Actually, Shaw’s type at Bordeaux was sufficient for a lot of to think about her among the finest
strikers on the planet. A return of 34 objectives in 36 matches already places you within the high
echelon, however in her brief stint at Manchester Metropolis Girls to date, she has put collectively
a mind-breaking 43 objectives in 52 matches. Within the WSL alone, she made 16 objectives in 17
matches. Her whole objective involvements (objectives mixed with assists) have her at 20 in 17
matches. She is single-handedly accountable for greater than half of Manchester Metropolis’s
objectives. She’s lately broke the Manchester Metropolis Girls’s scoring file in a single
season, firing the relative newcomer into an unbelievable title race with established
powerhouses Chelsea and Arsenal.
Shaw additionally holds the file as Jamaica’s all-time objective scorer and spearheaded the
well-known 2019 marketing campaign the place the Reggae Girlz certified for the Girls’s World Cup
and not using a single coaching camp in preparation.
Simply final yr, the Girlz secured computerized qualification to the 2023 World Cup by means of
an emphatic efficiency in opposition to neighbors Haiti and advancing to the semi-finals of
the 2022 CONCACAF W Championship. Due to that 2019 group, and bolstered by
this class of 2023, grassroots Jamaican ladies’s soccer has had new life breathed into
it.
There are nonetheless methods to go for soccer to be a viable profession path for Jamaican ladies, however
with every file damaged and every objective scored, Khadija Shaw is demanding that the
world sit up and take note of these ladies balling out.