Nadia Nadim

She was born in Herat, Afghanistan and raised there during her early childhood before having to flee to Denmark with her mother and four sisters.

She truly fell in love with football in a Danish refugee camp, where the children played on a rough grass patch with two smashed goals. She wrote that football became “our love” and “our language” during that period.

She speaks eight languages: Danish, English, German, French, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, and Pashto.

While building her football career, she also studied medicine for years. She described that period as “sleep, study, train, repeat” and said she worked in hospital operating theatres assisting surgeons.

Music is a real personal space for her. Her playlists have included everything from Bollywood and Mozart to Arabic music, Afghan music, Chris Brown, and Rihanna.

In 2018, she published her autobiography, My Story (Min Historie).

She started her own aesthetic clinic and would like to eventually become a reconstructive surgeon after her playing career with the aim of helping refugees.