The Dispatch: It's time to give Caroline Graham Hansen her flowers
The Barcelona and Norway star has never so much as received a Ballon d'Or nomination. On current form, she should be a front-runner...
In the past couple of years, the awards seasons have been dominated by Barcelona players.
Two years in a row, Alexia Putellas swept up – including back-to-back Ballon d’Or wins – while this year in her injury-induced absence, teammate Aitana Bonmatà took on the role of best in the world.
In those years and further into the past, they have been regularly joined on the shortlists by many of their Barcelona teammates, such as Asisat Oshoala, Mapi León, Keira Walsh, Patri Guijarro et all, but one name has often eluded such lists.
Norway’s elegant superstar, Caroline Graham Hansen.
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Incredibly, the forward has never made the Ballon d’Or shortlist, even in 2023 when itwas expanded from 20 names to 30.
She’s also not made the FIFA Best shortlist in either of the last two years, her last major nomination coming in 2021 when she finished ninth.
Is it just part and parcel of being just another cog in an elite-level winning machine? The other names who play in the red and blue stripes on the lists suggests otherwise.
Maybe it’s the constant disappointment Norway provide at major tournaments, yet in 2023 Norwegian teammate Guro Reiten was nominated – deservedly – for the Ballon d’Or, finishing 19th.
Whatever the reasons, Graham Hansen’s constant absence has been a regular talking point among fans of the women’s game, and not just within the confides of where the Catalan side play their brilliant, eye-catching football, but around the world.
This year though, there can be no ignoring her. Bar the Olympic Games where football plays just a small part of the spectacle, there’s no major tournament for her or Norway to be judged against, so if you solely look at her Barcelona form, it’s very much time to give the 28-year-old her plaudits.
Let’s make no mistake, Graham Hansen’s game isn’t just about numbers, and we’ll come onto that, but the numbers themselves do tell a story, and this season they are like nothing else in game among the elite leagues.
Not only is she the top scorer in the Liga F so far this season, with 14 goals, she’s also top of the assists chart too, with 11. That’s 25 goal contributions, for someone who is absolutely not an out-and-out poaching, goal-scoring centre forward.
Barcelona have scored 72 goals so far this season on their way to what looks like another dominant title, and even in a star-studded squad, Graham Hansen’s numbers means she has contributed to over a third of them, in a team which includes Alexia and BonmatÃ, but also Salma Paralluelo, Mariona Caldentey, Claudia Pina and, until her recent departure to Bay FC, Asisat Oshoala.
In Europe? Yep, she’s good there too. Her goals in the group stage leave her just one behind Lyon duo Ada Hegerberg and Kadidiatou Diani, while her five assists leave her top of those charts too.
Losing count? That’s 18 goals and 16 assists between Liga F and the Champions League, in February.
She’s not been too shabby in the cups either, scoring a hat-trick against Levante in the recent Supercopa final.
All in all, across her 22 games in all competitions this season, that’s 40 goal contributions.
22 goals and 18 assists.
To say it’s other worldly would be an understatement.
Of her 22 games, Graham Hansen has only failed to contribute to a goal in two of them. Two. A league game against Sporting Huelva at the start of the season, and a Champions League game away at Eintracht Frankfurt.
In Liga F, she has now scored in 11 consecutive games that she’s been involved in. The last time she drew a blank in a game she was playing in was against Valencia way back on the 5th October.
To put her numbers into some sort of context, compare them to the next best things across the major European leagues.
In the Barclays Women’s Super League, Khadija Shaw has 16 goal contributions with Lauren James close behind on 13.
In France, Hegerberg has 11 goals, but just one assist, while Diani has eight assists but just three goals.
In Germany, four players are tied on six goals so far this season, not even half of Graham Hansen’s scoring tally, and that’s before you look at assists.
Relevant Read: How Barcelona went from great to unstoppable
Even within her own league – and indeed her own team – the defending Ballon d’Or winner Bonmatà has seven goals and seven assists, which by anyone’s standards is a sensational campaign for a midfielder, while young forward Paralluello also has seven goals, half of Graham Hansen’s tally.
People will be quick to quip Liga F is uncompetitive, but it’s only being made to look so by a generational team, like Arsenal in England and Lyon in France did so before them.
It’s not that their rivals are bad, it’s just Barcelona are in another league. Unfortunately for those trying to compete, not literally.
Arguably, when you look at the talent across a spread of teams, it’s actually one of the most competitive.
Real Madrid, who sit second with 12 wins out of their 15 games, have a core of Spain’s World Cup-winning squad, including Teresa Abelleira, captain Ivana Andrés, the exciting Athenea Del Castillo and semi-final and final hero Olga Carmona, as well as a raft of international talent such as Sandie Toletti, Caroline Weir, Signe Bruun, Hayley Raso and Linda Caicedo.
Levante, despite their financial woes, had one of the best attacking pairings in the world football until Chelsea recently came along with a world record fee for Mayra RamÃrez, alongside last season’s Liga F top scorer, Alba Redondo.
Madrid CFF have Racheal Kundananji, who has spent the last 18 months tearing apart even the best defences, including Barcelona’s, while former champions Atlético Madrid can only manage fifth so far this season, despite having the likes of Dolores Gallardo, Vilde Bøe Risa, Ludmila, Marta Cardona, Leicy Santos, Rasheedat Ajibade, Eva Navarro, Estefania Banini and revelation of the season so far, Sheila Guijarro.
Even below that, Sevilla have Cristina Martin-Prieto, the player closest to challenging Graham Hansen’s goal tally this season, followed by her fellow Norwegian Synne Jensen, third for Real Sociedad, while eighth-placed UDG Tenerife also have international talent.
Graham Hansen is not tearing up an amateur league, she’s doing it against some of the best there is.
The scope of her talent is shown in the details. For those casual viewers, or even the many hardcore fans who remain frustrated by the lack of visibility of leagues outside their own, many may judge her talent on goals such as the one she scored against the Philippines in New Zealand last summer.
In truth, that’s just a small part of it, though her goal against Eintracht Frankfurt was remarkably similar.
The reality is, she can score every kind of goal. Many this season have seen her use her match intelligence to get in front of her marker and convert crosses from the left, whether with a deft touch of her right foot, or even her head.
If she’s coming in from the left, she can use her right foot to smash one in the top corner, as she did against Athletic Club, and can do the same with her left foot too, as she showed a week later when Eibar’s left-back probably thought she’d done a good job showing her inside instead of down the right where so many of her assists come from.
Instead, she bent a brilliant effort into the top corner with her ‘weak’ foot.
She has the touch, but also the power, as she showed in the cup final against Levante, rifling two efforts – one without even taking a touch – into the roof of the net.
She can baffle defenders, as she did against Real Madrid when she turned and twisted, sitting Carmona down in the process, and curled home into the corner.
She did the same against Huelva just a few weeks ago, when played in down the channel. Where weeks earlier she’d executed a similar goal by lobbing the goalkeeper, this time she chopped inside, leaving both goalkeeper and defender helpless, before rolling the ball into an empty net.
Her assists are equally as brilliant as they are simple. Many are low passes across the box, many are curled crosses into her target.
Where many will send a ball into a box hoping for the best, Graham Hansen picks her player out every time. Her three crosses against Sevilla – one of three times this season she’s got three assists in one game – all converted by Paralluelo, showed an almost telepathic understanding with her striker.
It’s similar with BonmatÃ, who she has set up several goals for, often with low passes back across the box which the midfielder is running onto. This is such a well-drilled machine, these players know where one another will be, and Graham Hansen is good enough to execute them nine times out of 10.
She did so twice against Benfica which allowed the midfielder to score and did the same against Real Madrid a week later. The two have such an understanding that on several occasions, Graham Hansen has slipped in Bonmati and continued her run, knowing the midfielder is going to flick the ball back to her, and it’s no coincidence, given it’s happened against both FC Rosengård and Levante this season, as well as a third time against Real Betis, but on that occasion with Marta Torrejón.
On the odd occasion they are ‘struggling’, she sorts it. In their most recent game against Sevilla, it was only 1-0 when the Norwegian came on in the 68th minute.
By the 71st minute, it was 2-0, as Graham Hansen converted a cross from the left at the back post, as she so often does.
Maybe the real reason she doesn’t get her plaudits is she makes the difficult look simple, but watch a little closer, and her intelligence, skill, movement and reading of her teammates is nailed down to a tee, and that takes a special talent.
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