The magician he starts again. Mexican footballer Lizbeth Ovalle received this Tuesday the Marta Prize, the prize awarded by FIFA to the best goal of the year in women’s football. This is the first time that Mexico has received this recognition, both in the women’s and men’s branches. It was in March, while Ovalle was still wearing the Tigres Femenil jersey, that she scored a goal in the shape of an inverted scorpion “demonstrating a marvelous technical feat, impeccable skill and enormous imagination”, FIFA said when announcing the award.
It was a match against Chivas de Guadalajara. With the score 1-0, Jenni Hermoso let a ball slip away and the Mexican, almost without space or angle, adjusted her body in the air to place it in the upper left corner. Ovalle admitted that even she doesn’t know how she scored that goal. “I just tried to hit the ball for a cross, who knows how I did it,” he said afterwards. The goal went viral and was dubbed the Shrimp.
The Marta Prize was created last year to reward the best goal in women’s football. In its first edition, the award was won by Marta herself, the Brazilian footballer after whom the award is named. On this occasion, the 26-year-old Mexican won it after a voting process that combined the opinion of fans and a panel of FIFA legends, both having equal weight in the final result. Ovalle was selected from a first list of 11 named goals, including the one scored by Marta herself in November 2024 with Orlando Pride against Kansas City Current, as well as the goal by Mariona Caldentey with Arsenal against Olympique de Lyon.
Ovalle thus closes a historic year. Last August, The magician She became the most expensive player of all time when she signed with the Orlando Pride for $1.5 million.
Born in Aguascalientes, she began her international career with the Mexican national team in 2016, during the U-17 World Cup in Jordan. A year later, he arrived at Tigres, where he won six league titles and three league titles. With the Mexican team he played 81 matches and scored 20 goals. She played a key role in winning gold at the 2023 Pan American Games and the 2–0 victory over the United States at the 2024 Gold Cup, where she was included in the tournament’s ideal XI. He has also shone in other categories: he won the Concacaf U-20 Championship in 2018 and scored the goal of the tournament at the U-20 World Cup in France the same year.
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