Rosa Kafaji: The Sweden wonderkid out to hurt the Lionesses after Women's Champions League breakthrough

It felt like 2022 was going to be Rosa Kafaji’s year. Aged 18, she got her big move from relegation-threatened AIK to title-chasing Hacken, becoming the most expensive domestic transfer in Swedish women’s football history in the process. It came off the back of her first year in the top-flight, one which also included a national team call-up. She was primed for a breakthrough – until some incredible bad luck.

Six minutes into her first game for Hacken, Kafaji broke her leg. Suddenly, her 2022 changed entirely, characterised by eight months of rehab and featuring just two appearances for her new club in all competitions. But her response to such a setback spoke volumes. “A winner always comes back,” she said. And she has.

Instead, 2023 was Kafaji’s year. She enjoyed a superb domestic season with Hacken, ending it as the club’s top goal-scorer, and she continued that form into her team’s Champions League campaign. Scoring in both of Hacken’s group stage wins over Real Madrid, her performances helped to seal an unlikely place in the quarter-finals.

“It was hard,” Kafaji said of her time on the sidelines. “It was my first game with Hacken that I got injured and you just want to show yourself, in the beginning especially. But I feel like… It was a year I was injured and I took it by analysing more, I became smarter, I became stronger because I was in the gym so much.”

All that hard work is showing now – and not just at club level. A Sweden debut was another milestone Kafaji hit in 2023, and she has been catching the eye plenty since, netting a first senior international goal at the beginning of this year.

On Friday, she’ll tick something else off that is on the bucket list of most footballers when she gets the chance to play at Wembley, as Sweden start their qualifying campaign for the 2025 Women’s Euros away to England. The Lionesses will need to be wary of many top talents in the opposition’s squad, and 20-year-old Kafaji is absolutely one of them.