It is easy to forget that West Ham’s new signing Nor Mustafa is only 18. The forward talks like a veteran about a desire to give back to the game. “Age is just a number,” says the Sweden Under-19 international, whose upbringing did so much to shape her.
Born in Sweden to Kurdish immigrants, Mustafa is proudly Swedish but will never “forget where my parents are from”. Her experiences made her the battling forward she is today and are the reason she has joined Common Goal, which supports players in donating 1% of their income to sporting charities.
Playing football on the streets and in the park with boys, Mustafa had to battle perceptions. “I was the only girl there with the boys. So like, I was one of the boys,” she says. “To be honest, a lot of people didn’t want me to play. I had people telling me: ‘You’re a girl, you should be at home, don’t play.’ I had family members who didn’t want me to play. But I loved it. It was my passion. I was burning for football. If I went to the store to buy milk I would have a football at my feet.”
Encouraged by a friend to play for a local team, she quickly became aware she didn’t fit in. “My friend was, like, typical Swedish, blond, blue eyes, and I’m not like that. I have dark hair and dark eyes. I didn’t feel welcome, they didn’t welcome me. Just because of the way I looked. But then on the pitch when I did my thing and I was better than the other girls, they couldn’t say anything.”
Resilience from playing with boys had got her ready to fight her way in. “My mentality is different. Like the way I play even; you learn a lot from playing with boys.”
Not everyone builds that confidence and resilience, though. “There was a girl, she was Somalian, she had a hijab and she was very good, very talented. This is youth level, everyone should play. But she asked when the next training was and they didn’t want to tell her.
“She came to me, she said: ‘Nor, what’s wrong with me?’ I said: ‘Listen, nothing’s wrong with you, this is just how it is. Come back. Just do your thing and things will be better.’ And I told her my story. She came back once and then she didn’t come back again.”
Whereas plenty of talented players fall by the wayside, Mustafa continued to battle. She joined Eskilstuna United’s youth set-up, moving into their academy and then into their under-19 team.
She gradually won the support of her parents, but the problems of getting the attention of a wider audience remained. “I have always had to do double or triple the work. One game I scored five goals just to get recognised; they’re the things you need to do to be seen. If I score one goal it’s just: ‘Yeh, she actually scored.’ I always had to do extra, extra, extra work.”
The goals kept coming. Eskilstuna Under-19s finished bottom but Mustafa was the league’s second-highest scorer. “I always said to myself: ‘Nor, you need to put up numbers because numbers don’t lie.’ That’s how everything came about.”
How many goals did she score? “I don’t remember exactly but in three games I scored 13 goals … I had to do stuff like that to be seen.”
Her call-up to the under-19 national team was different because “the respect was there”, she says. “You don’t go to the national team if you’re not good enough. But I was one of the only players that wasn’t the traditional Swedish girl with the blonde hair, blue eyes.”
This electric form caught the attention of West Ham’s manager, Matt Beard. He beat a host of European clubs and US interest to secure Mustafa. “Everything just clicked, they took an interest, they took care of me,” she says.
Now, the goal is “to learn, to perform, to get better and, like all players, I want to win titles”. But rather than wait for her platform to grow, she wants to use it now. “We can do so much more than just football with our platforms. I have a platform to build. Hopefully I have many more years to play. The higher I get in my career, the more I want to give. That’s my mindset.”
Sweden’s Kosovare Asllani, born to Kosovan parents, is one inspiration. Zlatan Ibrahimovic is another. “Ibrahimovic has opened so many doors for young immigrant players in Sweden like him. After him immigrants were accepted.
“I want to be like that on the women’s side, on the girls’ side. For people to look up to me and say: ‘She did it, why can’t we?’”
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