The pressure is on and Racheal Kundananji is not denying it. The Zambia forward became the most expensive female player ever last month when she joined Bay FC from Madrid CFF for $788,000 (£620,000) and she is only 23 years old. It is a lot to take in.
“There is so much pressure on me [as a result of the world-record transfer fee] but I just have to calm down, focus on my work and continue playing football,” the striker tells the Guardian from Ndola.
“This is not the end. It’s just the beginning. The expectations of the fans will be so high and opponents are not going to be so friendly to me. That’s why there is so much pressure now.”
The National Women’s Soccer League expansion side Bay City, based in the Californian state capital of San Jose, are co-founded by four USA women’s national team legends – Brandi Chastain, Aly Wagner, Danielle Slaton and Leslie Osborne, in partnership with the global investment firm Sixth Street. They will play their first NWSL game against Angel City in Los Angeles on 16 March.
The road to the top has not always been straightforward for the former 800m and 1500m middle-distance runner but she has picked up knowledge and experience at every corner. The second of five children, Kundananji was raised by a mother she describes as tough.
“I started playing football in the streets with the young boys, particularly after school,” she says. “There was a guy with Mufulira Blackpool [a club in Zambia’s Copperbelt region, where she – as well as Bwalya Kalusha, the male 1988 African footballer of the year – comes from] that started some teams and I used to play in one of them.
“Every time I play football, I enjoy it. Football is part of my life. I can play from morning to evening. We would make a ball out of plastic [bags] and just play … I grew up in a tough family. My mum didn’t give us that room to misbehave. It was only when I was a lot older that she knew I was spending so much time playing football. When I was younger she just thought I was having fun with my friends and she didn’t know what we were doing … She finally found out when I started playing at a small pitch next to our house. And she was happy with it as I was not getting into any trouble.”
Kundananji’s club career ascent began in 2018 with the Ndola-based Indeni Roses, who signed her after seeing her play for Konkola Blades in Chililabombwe, her hometown. In 2019 she took a huge step into the unknown by signing for the Kazakhstani side BIIK Kazygurt, who were playing in the Champions League at the time.
“Being from Africa, you see an opportunity [to move out of the continent],” she says. “It might not make sense when you begin the journey but you have to start from somewhere. I saw that they were in the Champions League, which was my dream to play in, so when I saw the opportunity I had to grab it.”
Playing in Europe’s top competition did not make life in Kazakhstan any easier, though, as she was one of only a few African players in the country. “I lived in Shymkent, a small city, for three years. I can say that it was not that friendly for people like us. Black people are not common there. When they see black people on the street it’s very different there to how it is in other European cities and countries.”
For her, the unpleasant treatment did not distract her from the challenge of establishing her European club career. “A soldier is always a soldier. A soldier will always survive in any situation,” she says with a smile. “When you know what you want, you have to learn to cope with things. I wanted to go to a bigger league so I just had to endure everything and use this small opportunity [to create a chance for myself]. To get good things, you have to face a lot of challenges.”
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When the Liga F side Eibar came calling Kundananji did not hesitate to move to Spain despite the salary that Kazygurt offered her to stay. “I had to give up everything and go there. If I tell you that my club in Kazakhstan offered me four times the salary I was earning to stay you will not believe it … they increased it to five times and I still said no because I wanted to play in Spain, to compete with the best, to play in a league where I will have a challenge to score.”
After moving from Eibar to Madrid CFF in the summer of 2022 she scored a remarkable 25 goals in 23 games in her first season, laying the foundations for what led Bay City to pay a world-record fee for her. “I managed to score those goals because of the players I was surrounded by, as well as the coaches and the supporters. They made things easy for me. The team was a family. Things were very good there.”
But her focus now turns to San Jose and the desire to make a football imprint in the US, somewhere she had never been before agreeing her new deal. “I am not putting myself under any pressure. I am going to the United States like this is not my first time … Our generation is the chosen generation, just expect more records to be broken. This is the generation that will show that there is great talent in Africa.”
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