A truly phenomenal goal from Leila Wandeler offered a glimpse of her exciting potential on Wednesday night. The 19 year old marked the Hammers 5-1 League Cup win away at Charlton with a moment of real quality.
Wandeler lit up The Valley with a moment of pure brilliance, slipping the ball through her markers legs before bending a spectacular 25 yard strike into the top corner during West Ham Women’s League Cup victory.
The teenagers effort, only the second goal of her professional career, came as part of a dominant performance that earned the Hammers their first win of the season. It’s a result that will certainly give Rehanne Skinner’s side a much needed boost ahead of Sunday’s game against last season’s WSL winners Chelsea.
The Swiss international admitted she was delighted after scoring what may well be a Goal of the Season contender. Discussing her goal with the clubs Official Website, Wandeler said: “It was a crazy goal! I’m very happy for that. I just tried to go one versus one and I saw that my defender was getting a little bit more tired at the end, so I had more chances to face her. And then when I went past her, there were not really any players in front of me so I just thought ‘try to shoot the ball’.”
She added: “It was perfect then, so I’m very happy!”.
As good as Wandeler’s strike was, it wasn’t the only exceptional goal of the evening. Manuela Pavi also scored a venomous long range effort which naturally sparked a debate over which was the better goal. Wandeler was diplomatic when asked to compare both goals.
“I mean, it’s questionable because Pavi was far from the goal, like very far and she was just like ‘OK, I just shoot the ball’ and it was powerful, so her goal was crazy to me!”. said the youngster.
Looking beyond her goal, Wandeler stressed the importance of team unity and said the victory would give West Ham valuable confidence heading into Sunday’s test against Chelsea.
“We were all happy for the team. We had to work together for this, so every single person who scored, we were just running to the players because we were just happy together. We’re really excited (for Chelsea) and we’re going to work harder for it.”
