Chelsea’s Zecira Musovic: ‘I fight for what I think is important and what I believe in’

Zecira Musovic first caught the eyes of Chelsea staff five years ago, in a 2-2 pre-season friendly between the Blues and the Swedish side Rosengård. In that game, the goalkeeper turned Karen Carney’s spot-kick on to the post early in the second half with the visiting team leading. The two sides would meet in the Champions League nine months later, in November 2017, giving Emma Hayes and her goalkeeping coach, Stuart Searle, another close look.

“We played a training game on astro somewhere, I don’t even know where it was,” remembers the Swede. “From what I have understood, that’s where the interest started from Chelsea’s side. They had been following me, without me actually knowing about it.”

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After three years of observation, Musovic was a Blue, unveiled by the club in January 2020. “Who’s not happy when Chelsea contact you? Come on,” she says. “I’d heard so many good things about our goalkeeper coach Stuart from Hedvig [Lindahl, the Swedish goalkeeper who played for Chelsea in those 2017 games]. I fully understand now what she means, I think he’s the best in the world. That was what I was most excited about: to work with the best goalkeeper coach in the world and to see what he can do with my goalkeeping.”

Musovic’s journey to Cobham has had its ups and downs, but it has been a relatively linear one. However, football, for “a typical sports person that loves every sport”, was far down the preferred list when she was younger. “At first I was like: ‘Nah, I’ll not start football because I want to play table tennis.’ But then I went to practice, and I completely loved it. I was stuck. Not in goal though, I was an outfield player until I was