Arsenal’s brand-new midfielder Rosa Kafaji has an admission. “Something controversial about me: I haven’t watched that much football because I was mostly outside playing,” she states. “So, I didn’t watch much football, but I know Arsenal is a big club that has had some big players – players like Thierry Henry.”
Kafaji, extensively recognized as one of many highest younger talents in Europe, has really reached Arsenal with a substantial amount of buzz. The 21-year-old will be forgiven for having really been glued to a pitch as an alternative of a show, resulting from the truth that the result has really been a dynamism on the sphere couple of can match.
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“Ronaldinho has been an inspiration since I was younger and that’s how I am trying to play like,” she states. “I want to be creative, have fun on the pitch, try to score and create chances.”
Arsenal’s supervisor, Jonas Eidevall, an different Swede, acknowledged it was “no surprise” she idolised theBrazilian “They have some similarities when they play,” he acknowledged. “She’s a correct baller. The issues she will be able to do with a ball might be going to interrupt the leg of different individuals making an attempt. So she clearly provides us some actually good qualities in our attacking play. She can open up in small areas and she will be able to put in balls with precise precision. I believe we would have liked that.
“I’ve seen Rosa play since she was young, first at AIK in Sweden and then at Häcken. I didn’t know her as a person, so I went over to Sweden and met with her before we signed her. We spent time just speaking, getting to know her and understanding our motivations. And I was crystal clear after that meeting that she was going to be a perfect fit for us.”
Kafaji will definitely head again to Gothenburg faster than anticipated, with Arsenal attracted versus Häcken within the 2nd spherical of Champions League certifying. The very first leg stays in Sweden on Wednesday, the return at Meadow Park the adhering to Thursday.
“It’s crazy to be playing against my old team – I was only there two months ago,” she states. “It’s nice to be going back. My former teammates sent messages to me about the game. They said that they thought they would draw Arsenal.”
Eidevall hopes Arsenal can take Kafaji to the next diploma. He acknowledged she was nice but when he noticed simply how she responded to a coaching drill versus a diminished block, he really started to grasp the flexibility at his disposal.
“We do one thing where one team is just entirely in low block, and we give that attacking team not a certain amount of time, but a limited number of balls,” he acknowledged. “So we are saying: ‘You have two balls. If that ball runs out, you’re finished. You’re not going to get one other one. So take advantage of out of this chance right here and now.’ Then play for instance, 10 v eight, in a good area.
“The good thing with that is players really take care of the ball, but still know you have to take the risk at the right moment, because otherwise you’re just keeping the ball and you’re not scoring. So it’s about finding that right moment. They play the ball into Rosa in quite a tight space centrally and from that moment I think everyone is expecting her to pass the ball back, but we continue to go on the other side and she turns on a dime; you can see a whole ocean is opening up in that moment. I was straight away like: ‘Yes, that’s exactly it.’”
The switch to Arsenal was a “pretty fast process”, statesKafaji “I got a good feeling from the beginning, speaking to Jonas, and from there it was just a good choice.”
Asked whether or not she regarded for the suggestions of Arsenal’s Swedish triad Lina Hurtig, Stina Blackstenius and Amanda Ilestedt previous to the relocation, she states: “Actually, I didn’t. I was trying to be sneaky and speak to Stina sometimes. I was very low key with it and didn’t tell anyone until it was done.”
Her want is to incorporate creativeness and an assaulting hazard. “I want to go forward all the time,” she states. The supreme goal? “I would like to win a trophy with the team and try to play as many games as possible from the start. I want to build chemistry with my team and score some goals.”
