Ewa Pajor (Poland, 27 years old) landed in Barcelona this summer to occupy the orphan position of nine. She arrived as Wolfsburg’s third top scorer, with 137 goals in 196 games after nine seasons. At Barça it couldn’t be different: in the first six days of the League she scored nine goals, the best scoring start in the history of the Barça team, and she is the top scorer of the local competition. In the last Champions League game, against St. Pölten, he was instrumental in opening the scoring with a goal after a disconcerting start, and this Saturday he will experience his first classic.
An unbeatable start to the season that is understood by his great adaptation to the team from day one, in a Barça dressing room with great synergies with Wolfsburg. There are four players with whom he met on the German team: Ingrid Engen, Fridolina Rolfö and Caroline Graham Hansen. “He’s scoring a lot of goals. She is a player with incredible focus. I’m not going to discover Ewa Pajor, but she gives us a lot: presence in the area, ability to unmark and repeat defensive efforts,” said her coach Pere Romeu in the run-up to the classic.
“He is extremely professional,” added the Catalan coach. Something that also surprised the Ciudad Deportiva. The Polish woman takes care of her diet, lives near the training place, is always the first to arrive and the last to leave. With an affable and very respectful character – on the pitch she is cheeky and powerful – she practices grounding (walking barefoot on the ground, grass or sand, as Luis Enrique promulgates). After each training session she walks barefoot on the grass, listening to her music, which she listens to in Polish, which keeps her close to her homeland. “It arrived adapted. She is a 10 player on a personal level,” confirms Romeu.
In the locker room he does his own thing a bit. With still limited English—she is learning Spanish—she communicates more with those players like Engen, who know German from her time in the Bundesliga. “It’s special to meet again. We talk about the life we share in Germany, and also about life here,” confessed the Norwegian center in the day before the classic. And he added: “For her it is a dream to be here. It’s nice to see her score the goals that we’re used to. I am very happy that he is improving so much. “He works very hard.” At Wolfsburg he formed a fearsome offensive trident with Pernille Harder and Graham Hansen, with whom he scored a total of 49 goals and 23 assists. “We are very friends. And we know each other very well in the field. It is a luxury to have her, because she fights every day for the team, in training, in games,” confesses Graham Hansen. Their connection on the pitch is undeniable, as evidenced by Pajor: “I know how she plays, and she knows how I want the ball.”
At Barça it has become fundamental. He has successfully occupied – more than 820 minutes played, 10 starts out of a possible 12 and 11 goals in all competitions – an empty position since the final departure of Jennifer Hermoso in 2022, which left 181 goals in his entire career. Since then, no player has established herself with the same presence in the Barça forward. Asisat Oshoala—he left the club last winter to go to the American league—also had a good relationship with goals, with a total of 110 goals, but he never found consistency. From there, many players have temporarily occupied the position, many as false nine: Salma Paralluelo, Mariona Caldentey or even Alexia Putellas.
In Barcelona she will try again to win the Champions League, a trophy that is still missing from the Pole’s showcase: she has been runner-up four times with Wolfsburg. The next challenge, however, will be his first classic. “For a player from outside it is always good to put her in context and explain a little about what she can find. But they already smell it when they go to train and the classic is approaching. The excitement is maximum,” shared Romeu. “But,” he continued, “you have to be calm to face it well.” With Pajor, his goals and his work, peace of mind is more assured.
