Gift Monday returns to Tenerife with quest to make impact

By Oyediji Oluwaseun Babatunde

Nigeria forward, Gift Monday has returned to training with her Spanish team, Costa Adeje Tenerife, and is aiming to make huge impact in the coming 2024/24 Spanish topflight season.

The Super Falcons had joined the training sessions of UD Costa Adeje Tenerife Egatesa last week, after missing out on the main Nigerian campaign for the Olympic Games in France.

The forward faces a new season with all the enthusiasm of the first day at the club: “I love Tenerife; I couldn’t wait to be here again, with the team, and I feel very happy to have returned,” she said in a statement to the club website.

The 22-year-old didn’t make the main squad but traveled with the team as an four-player alternate list.

This left Monday out of the Paris Games, but she prefers to see Olympics partly, noting that “it is true that I would have been very happy if I had been able to be at the Olympic Games, but the experience with the national team was fabulous and I learned a lot.”

Despite having lost three games in three games at the Olympic Games (against Brazil, Spain, and Japan), the Tenerife player insists: “I feel very proud of the team and how they fought during the Games. We were not the best team, but I think we were one of the best.”

Now back on the island, Monday’s first impressions are positive, since “we have some fantastic new players who are going to be a good reinforcement for us,” so “with the players who were already there last year and the new additions, combined, I think we are going to achieve success.”

On a personal level, the Nigerian is committed to “having a good impact on the team, trying to give my best, improve my goalscoring ability and, in general, do everything possible to help the team win” in the face of an exciting season for the blue and white family.

The former FC Robo Queens captain has spent two seasons with the Spanish side scoring nine goals in the league in 47 games.

Monday and her compatriot at the Spanish club, Rinsola Babajide hope to help the team to greater heights when the 2024/2025 season gets underway.