Leicester City defender, Ashleigh Plumtree, has pledged her allegiance to the Super Falcons, The Eagle Online has reliably gathered.
She has a Nigerian father and played at junior levels for England before training with the Super Falcons earlier last year.
Plumtree stated this in a chat with media on her first visit to Nigeria.
Her words: “I had experiences playing with England when I was younger and I really enjoyed them.
“I have to be honest, what football means to me now is different from what it was when I was younger.
“The biggest thing to me now is my family pretty much.
“I have two younger brothers and one younger sister.
“My sister and I have the same dad.
“My dad is Nigerian, my grand dad was born in Lagos, my two brothers have an English mum and their dad’s also English.
“My sister’s hue is a bit different to mine but we’re both Nigerian, but she has one or two things that I haven’t and we’ve been interested in knowing more about our heritage based on how she identifies herself and how I do as well.
“It’s only been in the last couple of years especially last year during the Coronavirus pandemic when my sister and I kind of bonded over the fact that we had this Nigerian heritage.
“She’s only 11 and I feel like I can help and advise her on a lot of things, so it’s like I’m taking her on a journey with me.
“I try and take one thing at a time.
“I don’t want to look too far ahead because there are things to concentrate on in the near future.
“Obviously, I want to play in big tournaments, so experiences like that will be immense.
“It’ll be a lot of pride to represent Nigeria.
“At the moment I’m just trying to prove my worth here, I just don’t want to be here just because I’m from England and I play for Leicester, I have to show my abilities.
“The style of football is very different, so I have to show that I can adapt to that and hopefully if things work out, I can be there and try as best as I can to represent this country as well as I can.”
Asked if she has plans to trace her origin, Plumtree said: “Definitely, I talk to my grand dad.
“He goes back and forth from Nigeria all the time.
“He lives in England now but he was brought up in Lagos and as I said, he’s constantly coming back here (Nigeria).
“We’re learning through him, we have other Nigerian relatives in England who go back and forth too.
“This is my first time in Nigeria, I’m just trying to learn from my family.
“I have family (members) all over the world but they always come back to Nigeria.
“I’m trying to learn through my sister and my grandfather at the moment and the physio helps me anytime I see her; she tries to teach me Yoruba words. I can learn as much as I want when I’m in England but you’ll never get the real feel if you’re actually not here.
“The little things are just fascinating. I’m here for football but I’m learning about things that are just as important that I’ll probably take for granted at home.”