Barbra Banda says she’s “fully back” with the Orlando Pride after a hip injury derailed her last season.
Banda shared this update at the recent National Women’s Soccer League Media Day event in Los Angeles. And indeed, recent social media posts by the Pride show her looking healthy at training.
Just as Banda’s ready to rebound from injury, she says the Pride are also ready to rebound from last season’s second-half swoon and heartbreaking playoff loss.
“We are so hungry to make up [for last season] because we know it’s not an easy league, but we are focusing on looking on this new season and we want to achieve more,” Banda said at NWSL Media Day. “Like we want to win the Shield, we want to win the Championship. That’s what we are looking for and that’s our aim.”
While Banda might be raring to start the season, Pride coach Seb Hines said the team will be taking a more cautious approach.
“I mean, we’ve got to be smart with her, she obviously had half a season out with injury,” Hines said. “She’s one of our key players. We obviously missed her towards the second half of the year and we’ve got to make sure that we’re making the right steps in order to perform at our highest. I know that she’s hungry to get back onto the field and compete. It’s the first time that she’s ever been out for this amount of time, so it’s a good thing as well she’s been out because now she has a desire and a hunger to go out there and compete on the biggest stage again. So we’ll be smart with it.”
Banda arrived in 2024 and scored 17 goals for the Pride, helping to spark — along with captain Marta — an incredible turnaround for a team that had mostly wallowed in the bottom half of the standings. She scored the lone goal in Orlando’s 1-0 victory over the Washington Spirit to win the 2024 NWSL championship and was named the game’s MVP.
She got off to another fast start in her second season, scoring eight goals in her first 12 matches. But she injured her hip during a match against the Kansas City Current on Aug. 16 and missed the rest of last season.
Orlando said Banda sustained a “full thickness avulsion of her right adductor longus tendon,” meaning that the tendon had fully separated from the bone.
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Orlando went through a rough stretch after the league’s summer break, going eight straight matches without a win. The Pride finished fourth in the league standings and fell 1-0 to Gotham on a stoppage-time goal in the semifinals.
So softspoken that at times she’s difficult to hear, Banda is exceedingly polite in person. True to form, she said she was grateful for the support she got from the Pride while she was rehabbing.
“It’s the name of the game. It happens,” she said about her injury. “So I think why I wasn’t that disappointed is because I’m in an environment where I feel at home, and even though I was on my injury, but everyone was there for me, so I didn’t feel any type of way.”
Banda has also played for Zambia’s national team since 2016. She scored hat tricks in the Tokyo Olympics and last year’s Paris Games, becoming the only woman to score three Olympic hat tricks.
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In 2024, she was named the African women’s player of the year and the BBC’s women’s footballer of the year. She’s twice been nominated for the Ballon d’Or.
Banda is also preparing for the Women’s African Cup of Nations, or WAFCON, coming up in March in Morocco. Zambia is in the same group as defending champions Nigeria, which features Asisat Oshoala and Michelle Alozie. Temwa Chawinga and her native Malawi are also in the difficult group.
WAFCON 2026 will serve as a qualifier for the 2027 Women’s World Cup. The four semifinalists will earn a spot in the field next year in Brazil.
In a somewhat strange twist, there was also a WAFCON held last year after the 2024 tournament was pushed back because of the Olympics. Nigeria defeated Banda’s Zambia 5-0 in the quarterfinals.
“Yeah, it’s crazy, but I think it’s good also for us Africans, you know, it’s where most of our young girls come up and show their talent,” Banda said. “It’s a big tournament that we get to have there. So it’s so exciting to be part of it and just looking to do our level best and probably win the cup.”