Olivia Smith Profile: First Women’s Footballer Net Worth £1 Million

In 2022 Smith was playing for the North Toronto Nitros. League1 has torn Ontario apart.

By the time the semi-professional league ended, she had scored 18 goals in 11 matches, and this would be the last time she would play club football in her home country.

That summer she moved south of the border to Penn State University in Pennsylvania. Once again, her time there was fleeting.

Although she arrived at Penn State with a serious cruciate ligament injury, sustained at the U-20 World Cup, and a poor level of performance, calls from Europe arrived by the end of her junior year.

“It was great to watch her be 18 because I don’t think there were many times when she was able to be her actual age,” said Dambach, the former Penn State head coach.

“Since she left Penn State, she’s put herself out there and put herself in uncomfortable situations, and I think through those situations she’s been able to really grow and develop.”

And so, a year after that season in Canada, she left college and moved to Portugal to join Sporting, despite strong interest from France and England.

Batlle y Font was instrumental in convincing Smith to move to the relatively obscure Portuguese league – and he has reaped the rewards.

The 30-year-old said: “I will not say that our project is better than those clubs, it is clearly different.” “I think she understood that we really wanted her.

“I think she chose us because she realized that she would have the same rights and the same duties as other players, but she would not remain just another player.

He added: “Once the decision was made, we never felt that they saw us as a small club, compared to other clubs that were interested in them.”

It didn’t take long to make a good impression in Portugal.

“She was 18 and was playing against experienced players and was playing a bit of a trick on them.

“When she was playing we would look at each other and say, ‘How did we trick this girl into being here? How lucky are we?’

Once again, by the end of another productive season, she was packing her bags and Batlle y Font was receiving inquiries from multiple clubs in Europe.

“There were more clubs interested and, to be honest, they had better offers than Liverpool, but not the kind of project Olivia wanted,” Battle-y-Font said. “Once again, this shows how persistent Olivia is.”

Her first season in the WSL saw her score seven goals in 20 appearances for Liverpool, as well as being named the Premier League Young Player of the Year. When she arrived at Arsenal this summer, it was her third club in three years.

“I definitely think it’s not comfortable, but you’ve got to feel comfortable when you’re uncomfortable,” Smith told reporters during the preseason. “It was very difficult for me personally, and I didn’t know what was going to happen next.

He added: “Like my first season, I never expected to leave after one season, especially last season, as I only spent one season in what I think is the best league in the world and then I came here.”

“So it’s definitely not easy, especially with my family being so far away, but it makes the transitions easier,” he added.