Tokyo 2020: Barbra Banda stakes claim to future despite Zambia's exit

Zambia have gone out of the Olympic football competition after losing to Brazil. But their captain, Barbra Banda, can look forward to an exciting future after she set the tournament alight.

As they met in the center circle for the coin toss, Brazilian captain Marta and her Zambian counterpart Barbra Banda exchanged fist bumps and knowing smiles.

Marta, 35, arguably the greatest women's player of all time and certainly among the most decorated, could be forgiven for thinking that this was something like a passing of the baton. Talent, after all, can recognize talent, and Banda has shown that she has that in abundance.

Despite her country's groupstage exit from the football competition in its first ever appearance, confirmed by the 1-0 defeat by the Brazilians in Saitama, Banda has only needed a handful of games to garner the plaudits and establish herself as one of the sport's hottest prospects.

In Zambia's first match against the Netherlands, she scored three times in a heavy 10-3 loss. In their next match, a 4-4 draw with China, Banda repeated the feat and, at the same time, wrote her name into the record books: No female player has ever managed two hattricks at an Olympic Games. And her six tournament goals also equalled a record.

After grabbing the second of those hattricks against China on Saturday, Banda told reporters that she was "aiming to become the best footballer in the world."

Top scorer in the Chinese league

She is already heading in the right direction. The 21-year-old's professional career started at Logrono in Spain and has since taken her to Shanghai Shengli in China. That move to the Chinese Super League was for a reported $300,000, making Banda the third most expensive female player of all time.

Her club will consider that money well spent: Banda finished as the league's top scorer last season, finding the net 18 times in 13 appearances.

It is a far cry from the days when a teenage Banda used to throw her boots out of her bedroom window so she could sneak off to play football, ironically because her parents didn't think