Racheal Kundananji was just 17 when she showed up to practice with her first-ever soccer team wearing track spikes.

Until then, track and field was the only organized sport she had known in the Zambian copper-mining region where she grew up. Now she was sprinting around a bumpy patch of dirt that seemed more suitable for off-road biking than for soccer, displaying skills as rugged as the field itself.

“She would run very fast,” said Risto Mupaka, a coach of the team, Konkola Queens. But, he added, “turning was a problem.”

It didn’t take her long to figure out the game. After only four practices, Kundananji played her first match. She scored three goals.

Seven years since that debut, Kundananji, 24, will lead Zambia’s national team into the Paris Olympics carrying a title that those who knew her at 17 could have scarcely believed: She is now one of the most valuable women’s soccer players on the planet.