Handball: Laeticia Ateba, the Cameroonian reigning over Italy

The 2025 season of the Italian women’s handball championship ended with a distinction for the Cameroonian Laeticia Pétronie Ateba Engadi. The left back of Pontinia Handball was elected "Best foreign player" at the first edition of the FIGH Awards Night, organized by the Federazione Italiana Giuoco Handball, the Italian Handball Federation.

141 goals in the season
The vote, combining the votes of the coaches and those of the supporters, allowed her to collect more than 40,000 votes and to establish herself as the most influential foreign player of the season in the Italian women’s A1 handball series.

This distinction comes to conclude an exercise 2025 marked by high offensive production. Under the colors of Pontinia, Ateba scored 141 goals over the entire season. Used mainly at the left back position, it is involved in the construction of the placed game and in quick transition sequences. His role in the team’s offensive organization gradually expanded over the course of the season, especially at times when Pontinia had to step up the pace or unlock compact defenses.

Handball as a legacy
Originally from Nkoteng in the Centre region of Cameroon, where she was born on 1 December 2001, Ateba discovered handball in a family environment already linked to the discipline. Her mother played this sport at an amateur level. The player then completes part of her training at the André Nziko Foundation, a structure known in Cameroon for training young handball players. This passage constitutes one of the first steps in a journey that will lead her to the Italian championship.

Before her arrival in Pontinia in January 2024, Ateba notably evolves with Handball Erice. She wins the Italian Cup and the Super Cup, two titles that mark her first record lines in Europe. These performances allow her to continue her progression in the Italian championship, where she gradually establishes herself as one of the most productive foreign players offensively.

Parallel to her club career, Ateba has been evolving with the Cameroonian national team since 2019. She notably participated in the 2021 African Women’s Handball Nations Championship held in Yaoundé, where Cameroon won the silver medal after a final lost to a formidable team from Angola. She also competes in several international competitions, including the 2021 and 2023 World Championships. His coronation in Italy thus comes to extend a course started on the local fields and now inscribed in the landscape of European handball.