Who Is Mayssa Baha, Barcelona’s 15-Year-Old Moroccan Football Prodigy?

For 15-year-old Moroccan international player Mayssa Baha, September brought a major breakthrough. On September 26th, she became the youngest player to start a match for FC Barcelona Femení.

Starting Barcelona’s league match against Logroño United, Baha also scored her first senior-team goal. In doing so, she became the youngest player to score for any of Barcelona’s senior teams, men’s or women’s, breaking the record previously held by Lamine Yamal. She also became the youngest goalscorer in Liga F, Spain’s women’s top-flight league.

The start was a significant step up for a player who, in the weeks leading up to the match, had been coming off the bench for one of women’s football’s most successful teams. Barcelona won the UEFA Women’s Champions League in three of the past four seasons and claimed the Spanish league title in each of the last seven. Last season, the team won 29 of its 30 league matches and thrashed Real Madrid 7-0 in front of 40,000 fans.

Among those Baha shared the pitch with was Aitana Bonmatí, widely regarded as the world’s best female player, who also came on as a substitute. Despite her rapid rise, Baha will have to wait until she turns 16 next January to become eligible to play in the UEFA Women’s Champions League.

Her rise at Barcelona began years earlier, following a childhood spent between Spain and Morocco. Baha was born in Málaga, Spain, in 2011, while her father, former Moroccan international Nabil Baha, was playing for one of the city’s clubs. Between 2014 and 2016, she began playing football at Fath Union Sport in Rabat, where her father was also playing.

The family later returned to Málaga, where Baha continued playing youth football alongside her brother, Ziyad. She regularly played for teams made up of girls two or three years older than her, competing against players with more experience from an early age.

Now 17, Ziyad plays in Olympique de Marseille’s youth teams and represents Morocco’s men’s under-17 national team, which their father coaches. Like her brother, Baha has gone on to represent Morocco at youth level, playing for the women’s under-17 national team. She made her international debut at just 12, setting another record.

She was also the youngest player at last year’s FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup. Despite representing Morocco at youth level, however, Baha can still choose to play for Spain when she comes of age.

Football has become a family affair, with their mother, Farah Farabian, a Spanish-Moroccan model, spending much of her time travelling to watch her children play. Farabian recently wrote about her decision to leave her job to focus on them, reflecting on how others sometimes question whether doing so means giving up a life of her own.

“People wonder why I left my job for my children, as if I no longer have a life of my own. But my life today also means accompanying them through theirs. Every weekend, I travel long distances between Barcelona and Marseille to be there for their matches, their joys and their growth. It isn’t a sacrifice; it’s my choice and my happiness,” she wrote.

She went on to add: “A career can wait, but their childhood and teenage years will never come back. So yes, I choose them, and I would make that choice a thousand times over. Because watching them grow up and achieve their dreams is also my greatest achievement.”

At Barcelona, Baha’s development has been just as rapid. She joined the club at 13 and entered its La Masia academy, progressing through the youth ranks to play for the C team last season.

She began the current season with the B team, but a pre-season training camp in Andorra gave her an opportunity to work with the senior squad. After impressing the coaches, she earned a place alongside some of the best players in the world, setting the stage for her record-breaking September.

Baha is regarded as the best player in the world in her age group and has already shown considerable mental and physical maturity. Strong and confident, she combines physical power with speed. Still, at 15, she has plenty to learn about the game. With Barcelona providing an environment in which to develop her abilities, her record-breaking start could be just the beginning.