Ada Hegerberg made more history last season in helping Lyon win their third straight UEFA Women’s Champions League, for which she was rewarded with a new contract until 2021 believed to be unprecedented in the female club game and by receiving the first women’s Ballon d’Or award.
Ada Hegerberg was tipped for success from making her top-flight Norwegian debut for Kolbotn aged 15 and since then she has already racked up more than 250 career goal, including a record 15 in the 2017/18 UEFA Women’s Champions League, her and Lyon’s third triumph in a row. In 2015/16 she was voted UEFA Best Women’s Player in Europe and with the 2018 Ballon d’Or now in her possession, we salute a player with a career goals tally that would be the envy of strikers a decade older than her 23 years of age.
What they say
“Ada has a physical and mental strength above the norm. She is on her way to becoming the best player in the world.”
Jean-Marie Aulas, Lyon president
“A young player, but already a great player. It’s impressive to see just how mature she already is in her play. An exceptional goalscorer.”
Camille Abily, Lyon captain
“She has unconventional qualities. It is impressive how she has managed to make history in such a short space of time.”
Eugénie Le Sommer, Lyon attacker
Current tally (to 3 December 2018)
International: 66 appearances, 38 goals
UEFA club competition: 41 appearances, 41 goals
Domestic competition: 197 appearances, 205 goals
Claims to fame
Norway
• At only 15, helped Norway to the 2011 UEFA European Women’s Under-19 Championship final.
• Her senior debut came the same year and Hegerberg captured headlines at UEFA Women’s EURO 2013, where she scored in the quarter-final defeat of Spain as Norway finished runners-up.
• Hegerberg was nominated for the Young Player Award at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup and was the ten-goal joint-top scorer in UEFA Women’s EURO 2017 qualifying. Currently not available for the national team.
Kolbotn, Stabæk, Turbine Potsdam
• Having made her senior Kolbotn debut aged 15 in 2010, the following year she made headlines as she became the youngest-ever hat-trick scorer in Norway’s top dvision, taking just seven minutes to rack up three against Røa, who went on to become champions, conceding only 18 times in 22 matches.
• Having been Kolbotn’s top scorer in 2011, Hegerberg joined Stabæk, aiding them to Norwegian Cup success … with a final hat-trick against Røa. She was league top scorer on 25 goals.
• That success earned Hegerberg a move to Germany’s Turbine Potsdam and she scored on her Frauen Bundesliga debut against Freiburg.
Lyon
• Lyon took Hegerberg to France in summer 2014 and in her first season she was league top scorer with 26 goals in 22 matches for the champions.
• The 2015/16 campaign was even more successful; not only did Lyon win the treble of UEFA Women’s Champions League, French League and French Cup, Hegerberg totalled 54 goals including a competition-leading 13 in Europe, opening the scoring in the final against Wolfsburg.
• Hegerberg was named UEFA best women’s footballer in Europe for 2015/16 and in the calendar year 2016 scored more goals than anyone else in UEFA competitios, pipping Cristiano Ronaldo.
• Another treble followed in 2016/17, a season that included Hegerberg being named BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year.
• Last season Hegerberg had another spectacular campaign with 53 goals, including a record 15 in the UEFA Women’s Champions League (moving into the top ten in the competition all-time goalscorers’ list at 22 years of age) as Lyon made it three wins in a row.
• She extended her contract until 2021 and by the time she received the first women’s Ballon d’Or award in December 2018, she was already close to 20 goals fo the season.
What you might not know
• In January 2016, Hegerberg became only the second woman to win the Golden Ball as Norway’s best footballer. The previous female recipient was Hege Riise after Norway won the 1995 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
• Hegerberg’s elder sister, Andrine, played along side Ada for Kolbotn, Stabæk and Potsdam and well as Norway at young and senior level. They faced off for the first time last month after Andrine joined Paris Saint-Germain, Lyon drawing a league game 0-0 but losing a rain-interrupted French Cup final 1-0.
• As a joke, Stabæk’s website once wrote that the pair were the daughters of humorous Norwegian rocker ‘Bare’ Egil Hegerberg. Many were taken in, and once they scotched the rumours, @BareEgilBand tweeted: “Few things are more painful than being rejected by your own children.”
• Hegerberg says: “I like books. I read a lot, to be honest. I have Norwegian favorites but I read everything from biographies to novels.”
What she says
“I’ve been working on the small details since I was very young. I think that what takes you a long way is hard work and commitment, doing your best every day, working on the little things, and I think my own season so far is the result of that.”
“To be honest I didn’t watch that much women’s football when I was younger. My favourite team is Arsenal and I always loved watching Thierry Henry in his best period of his career. I think he was the best player of the world at that time. His movement, finishing, and last but not least his hunger for always wanting to score goals – pure class.”
“I’ve developed a lot since I came to Lyon two years ago. Coming here with all these world-class players has really pushed me. I think it’s easy to say that a club like Olympique Lyonnais can just go and get a title, but there’s so much hard work behind it, every day in training, mentally and physically.”
“It is a joy to go to work every day doing what you love the most.”
[After signing her new contract in 2018] “I am at the best club, with the best conditions. I can give the best of myself. This is my house, I’m really happy. It’s been four years that I’ve been at OL, it’s my second family. I feel appreciated and I appreciate this club. If we continue to work well, there are still many years to come.”
What she might achieve yet
• Considering she is only 23 and sixth on the all-time UEFA Women’s Champions League scorers’ list, it seems only a matter of time before she overhauls the still active Anja Mittag in first place (Mittag has 51 goals, Hegerberg 41) and perhaps goes on to extablish a lead similar to that held by Cristiano Ronaldo in the men’s competition.
• She has been part of the Lyon side that became the first to win three European titles in a row, in both 2015/16 and 2017/18 striking in finals against Wolfsburg and topping the season’s goalscorers list. The deal Lyon have given her, reported to be the best in women’s club football history, suggests they do not expect to stop three.
• The first three winners of the UEFA Best Women’s Player in Europe Award – German trio Nadine Angerer, Nadine Kessler and Célia Šašić – all immediately retired (in Kessler’s case due to injury). The fourth winner Hegerberg seems more likely than not to add to her tally though she lost out to Pernille Harder last season.
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