Kika Nazareth returns, former Benfica star smiling again with Barcelona | OneFootball

After several months injured and a European Championship to forget, Kika Nazareth seems determined to leave all that went wrong behind and embrace the new season. Yesterday, the former Benfica player marked her return to the Spanish league with an assist in Barcelona's 8-0 thrashing of Alhama.

In the official start of the women's season in Spain, Barcelona, the trophy holder, began their title defense at full speed, delivering an ‘8-goal sheet’ to the newly promoted team. Kika Nazareth, returning to competition after Portugal's participation in the European Championship, was a starter for the blaugrana team.

The contribution of the former Benfica player came in the 71st minute when she assisted for Claudia Pina's first goal. Most impressively, the Spanish international had just come on in the 68th minute and still managed to score a hat-trick. Besides the goal provided by Kika Nazareth, the player scored again in the 75th minute, and the third goal came at 90+9’.

Before the avalanche caused by the player who came off the bench, Barcelona was already leading by five goals to zero, thanks to goals from Caroline Graham, who scored twice at 5 and 58 minutes, Aitana Bonmati, in the 11th minute, Ewa Pajor, in the 28th minute, and Ona Battle, just before the halftime whistle (45+1’).

With this victory, the Catalan team, with Kika Nazareth in the starting eleven, started the new edition of the Spanish league on the right foot, already taking the lead in the championship. On the other hand, some of the former Benfica player's compatriots were not as fortunate. Inês Pereira's team, Deportivo, drew against Badalona (0-0), while Dolores Silva, who played the full match for Levante, was defeated by Granada (2-1).

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.