American forward Onyeka Gamero, 17, has signed with FC Barcelona B, the club announced Wednesday. Gamero, who has recently featured with both the U-17 and U-20 U.S. youth national teams, verbally committed to Stanford University a year ago but has opted to head to Europe to start her professional career.
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Here’s what you need to know:
- Gamero holds a Spanish passport and will reside at the team’s youth academy, La Masia.
- She previously trained with Lyon in May, and had been offered a contract by the team, but ultimately chose to sign with Barcelona. Gamero also spent time with OL Reign in their NWSL preseason training environment earlier this year.
- She also recently signed with Nike, announcing the deal earlier this month.
❗ 𝐔́𝐋𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐀 𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐀
✍🇺🇸 Onyeka Gamero, de 17 anys, nova jugadora del FC Barcelona B
👀 Els detalls: https://t.co/9SueR3wxwF pic.twitter.com/vxBFeOHo9p
— FC Barcelona Femení (@FCBfemeni) June 28, 2023
How it happened
Gamero spoke to The Athletic on Wednesday shortly after the formal announcement, still wearing her new Barcelona kit and beaming after having completed a tour of the club’s facilities.
“I’m still stuck on the fact that a month ago, I thought I was going to go to college,” she said. “So much has happened in such a short amount of time.”
She was invited to train with Lyon via their academy system, and she said her eyes were opened there to the possibility of going pro earlier than she had planned. “That is my ultimate goal. I know for sure that I want to go pro,” Gamero said. In France, though, players her same age were already much further along.
“They’re pretty much three steps ahead because I have one more year of high school, two years of college — which is already a cheat because you’re supposed to have four. But they were three steps ahead of me because I want the exact same thing but they’re starting next year.”
Gamero said Lyon offered her a contract after her time training there, then Barcelona also offered her a contract. Both offers happened while she was playing with the U-20 YNT in the CONCACAF qualifiers.
“It was also important to stay focused on CONCACAF as well, so staying focused but also keeping in the back of my mind, I really want to go pro and the timing.”
On the potential of playing with the first team
The goal for Gamero is breaking through to the first team, but signing to the B team allows for a slightly easier path for such a young player to do so.
“They put a lot of emphasis on the fact that they don’t want it to be a pressure,” she said. “I’m going to have opportunities where I can break through to the main team.”
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She’s not averse to pressure being placed on her but called this approach a more natural one where she doesn’t have to rise to the level of a Champions League-caliber team at this point in her career on day one.
“Also, it spurs me because I’ve been in situations (like this),” Gamero said, citing examples of being played at lower age groups during her elite club career. “That really makes you want to work harder so you can get to that position, so I feel like starting in the B team will push me to really work to the A team.”
Why Barcelona?
Gamero said she spent most of her childhood watching men’s soccer with her father, mostly La Liga and Premier League (she’s obviously started watching more women’s soccer now too).
“Growing up watching Barcelona, Real Madrid, Sevilla, Betis, all those teams. The style of play is what really drew me,” she said, noting she’s also watched plenty of documentaries breaking down all of these teams.
“I love to play beautiful soccer, combination passing, playmaking. I love that, so that’s really what drew me in. But when I started to learn more, past the soccer, the things that Barcelona does outside of the field really drew me. The motto is ‘més que un club,’ it’s more than just soccer. All the extra things, all the emotions from the games, everything they’ve done in their history is incredible.”
Backstory
Gamero is from California, playing with Beach FC at the elite youth level. Earlier this month with the USYNT, she helped the U-20 squad qualify for the U-20 FIFA Women’s World Cup at CONCACAF qualifiers in the Dominican Republic.
She plays primarily on the right wing, and if you watch any of the YNT matches she’s featured in or highlight clips on YouTube (there are already a decent number), she’s already earned a reputation for her movement with the ball at her feet and her ability to slip a ball into the box for her teammates. She’s still young, and her first touch can sometimes betray her with its length, she shows considerable promise as a right winger who can take on defenders at will.
(Photo: Angel Martinez / FIFA / FIFA via Getty Images)
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