VALLETTA, December 9, 2019 - After turning heads with a consistent performance on home soil, finishing as top scorer in the Ethiopian Women's Premier League (EWPL) for four straight seasons, Loza Abera is currently living the dream in Malta with Birkirkara Football Club, the island country's second most successful women's club side.

With nine goals in six matches so far, including a hat-trick, plus one goal in a friendly, there is no gainsaying the fact that the Ethiopia international has proved herself a huge asset to the eight-time champions.

Birkirkara Women announced the signing of the 22-year-old goal machine on September 25. “It was not an easy journey, it took me years to land my first ever professional contract,” Abera tweeted afterwards, while appreciating the “many humble people” that contributed to her move abroad. She has gone on to feature for the Stripes in every game since the start of the 2019/20 BOV Women’s League season in October, scoring in all but one.

And being a serial winner herself, with four successive EWPL titles to her name, Abera is hoping that her goalscoring prowess will help her new team retain their league title, and consequently qualify for next season’s UEFA Women's Champions League.

Although, being in a completely new environment – with a different culture, language and playing style - makes the task all the more challenging, she told AIPS that “football is the universal language” with which she communicates with her teammates.

Last year, she had a brief, but impressive trial spell in Sweden, spending most her time with second tier side Kungsbacka IF, where she scored important goals, won a regional title, and helped the team gain promotion to the top flight. However, her love affair with Kungsbacka could not metamorphose into a permanent contract ahead of the following season due to finance.

“There is no extra cost for signing a player from Europe, but for a player coming from another continent, you will have to pay work permit fee. The club couldn't do that. It was not a matter of talent or ability,” Abera explained to the BBC.

Prior to her time in Sweden, Loza also participated in a trial in Turkey for a month, but knowing her worth, she refused the Turkish club’s offer. In spite of these disappointments, she persevered until she achieved breakthrough.

Now her hope is for more women footballers in Ethiopia to join her in Europe, and she believes tournaments like the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations would present a perfect platform for them to showcase their talent. The Ethiopia Women’s National Team last qualified for the continental showpiece in 2012.

There are four more slots to fight for during the qualification process for the 2020 edition after the Confederation of African Football (CAF) expanded the tournament from eight teams in July.

Expansion or not, though, Loza had already declared via Twitter last year, after they missed out on the 2018 edition, that qualifying for the Women’s AFCON in 2020 “is a must” for her country. And she is obviously committed to making this come to pass.

“Not just me,” she added, “all the players and the coaches. So maybe we pass the qualification phase, then play in Africa Cup (of Nations), many clubs and agents will see my teammates, and women’s football in Ethiopia would be ranked higher,” she told AIPS.

A record total of 36 women's national teams entered for the 2020 Women’s AFCON qualifying tournament, with Ethiopia taking on Djibouti in the first round, which will take place in April 2020.

With eight goals, Loza was the top scorer in the 2018 Women’s AFCON qualification, but her team fell in the second and final round to Algeria. She boasts 23 international goals in 22 appearances for the national team across all levels, including the six that made her a joint top scorer in the African U-20 Women's World Cup Qualifying Tournament in 2015.

From Hawassa City to the now disbanded Dedebit FC, and then Adama Kenema, Loza scored over 200 goals across six seasons in the EWPL, and there she is in a world of her own atop the all-time chart as the country’s best goalscorer in women’s local competitions. She was top scorer from 2015 to 2018. In 2019, she joined the league late, but went on to score 17 goals in 9 matches for Adama to finish as the second top scorer as they won the league title.

In the meantime, making a mark in Europe is the priority for Loza, and with both hands she has embraced the “good opportunity” Birkirkara offered. “I want to write another profile,” she said. Hopefully, it would be a profile that will eventually introduce her to the rest of the world. “My plan first of all is to give my best in the club. It’s the club first before player,” she stated. Her personal ambition is to be the top scorer of the league and to play in the highly-rated Champions League.

Up next for Abera and Birkirkara in the BOV Women’s League is an away fixture against bottom-placed Hibernians on Tuesday.