“I miss playing without pressure” – Barça’s Kika Nazareth on her battle with imposter syndrome | OneFootball

“I changed everything. I moved home and I moved country, all for football – and all of a sudden, I can’t play football.”

Two years ago, Kika Nazareth moved from her childhood club to Barcelona for a fee in the region of €500k. The blaugrana had just lifted their second consecutive UEFA Women’s Champions League title, and the club had cemented itself as the destination for those looking to be heralded as the best in the world – including a 21-year-old Portuguese forward, who left Lisbon behind in an attempt to ‘win it all’.

But in an interview with Roger Escapa on 3Cat’s l’Eclipsi programme, she revealed that life in Catalunya has been far from smooth sailing and highlighted an ankle injury that kept her sidelined for months.

“I changed everything. I moved home, I moved country, all for football – and all of a sudden I can’t play football.

“Even now, there are days when I wonder ‘what’s going on with my life?’ because I changed my whole life for football and then this injury happens,” she explained, admitting that she’s also learned to deal with imposter syndrome since arriving in Barcelona.

“I was the second or third most expensive player in women’s football [when I signed for Barça],” the now 23-year-old recalled.

“I know myself very well. But sometimes I need someone to tell me things. I’m not sure if it’s necessarily insecurities… just that someone looks at me and tells me ‘you’re a confident woman’ because yeah, that’s true, but I’m also a very insecure person at the same time. I don’t know why, because I don’t have reasons to be, but the truth is that I’m very insecure and I need people to tell me ‘Kika, you’re a very good player’… if they believe it, of course!

“I miss being young and playing next to my house with people I didn’t know, without thinking that 40,000 people or the coach were watching me, or that girl. I think that’s what I miss most, playing without pressure.”

Since arriving in Barcelona, fans have quickly taken to the Portuguese international, thanks in no small part to the commitment she has made to learn Catalan. Having promised to complete an interview in the language within a year of her arrival, the 23-year-old now speaks with ease – her entire 24-minute appearance on l’Eclipsi was conducted in Catalan.

She explained: “At the start, I had some classes with a teacher at La Masia.

But while she agreed with Escapa’s assumption that ‘quite a lot’ of Catalan is spoken within the dressing room, Kika revealed “that they’ve kind of got it internalised that I’m not Catalan.

“Sometimes I ask them, ‘hey, speak to me in Catalan’.“

Kika comes across as thoughtful and self-reflective, and describes herself as ‘intense’ at several points throughout her conversation with Escapa, joking that she is fed up of being asked what she wants to achieve in football.

“It’s always the same answer,” she laughed. “I’m a footballer. I want to be the best in the world. I want to win. I want to win the Champions League. I want to win it all.”

With that ambition, though, comes a need to remind herself to take a step back and acknowledge how far she has already come.

“It seems to me that I always want more and more. I think that at times I need to relax a bit more and think, ‘woah, I’m here.’

“That’s very important. I’m a very intense person and I want to achieve it all, but sometimes I have to say to myself, ‘Francisca, calm down a bit because you’re already one of the best in the world’.“