Buenos Aires Argentina’s women’s soccer team has one goal in this World Cup: to get through the group stage. It would be the first time he gets it. This Monday morning, the Argentines play the first match of the tournament, against Italy. They will then face South Africa and Sweden. The last few weeks, before traveling to New Zealand, one of the venues for the ninth edition of the Women’s World Cup, have been concentrated at the Predio Deportivo Lionel Andrés Messi, in the municipality of Ezeiza, in the province of Buenos Aires. The players have trained like never before. “We want to make history”, says captain Vanina Correa in statements to this newspaper.
It has only been four years since the Argentine Football Association (AFA) professionalized women’s football. Spain did it two years later. “Semi-professionalize”, points out the sports journalist Agustina Vidal to this newspaper, who assures that there is still a lot of ground left to run. It all started in January 2019 when the player Macarena Sánchez, from the San Lorenzo de Almagro club, stood up saying that she wanted to have her rights as a sports worker guaranteed. The women’s teams competed without contracts and on paltry salaries. “In March, the AFA drew up a plan to change this situation structurally; all in all, in a context in which the feminist movement and in particular Marea Verde – the Argentinian campaign for legal, safe and free abortion – had a lot of strength in the country”.
The plan is to add rights to the women’s teams every year: the AFA has made it a mandatory condition for clubs to gradually sign contracts for players, as well as to create youth squads (by the end of 2023, all clubs will have to have all categories, from under-14 to First Division). “In this way, you make sure that all girls of any age who want to play football will be accepted at any club in the category that corresponds to them”, points out Vidal. This year, in addition, the AFA has signed an agreement with the Ministry of Education to guarantee football as an option for girls at school, who until now mainly played volleyball, handball or, “in centers with more purchasing power, hockey”.
Turning point for women’s football in Argentina
Women’s football in Argentina is at a turning point: “We are aware that we have a deficit compared to European teams or the United States, but we have also improved a lot technically and physically”, acknowledges Correa: “In this World Cup it would be a pride to consolidate what we have done in the previous three”. In the 2019 World Cup, two draws against the then runners-up Japan (0-0) and Scotland (3-3), attracted the attention of the media “and, consequently, of many people who did not even know that a women’s World Cup was being held”, recalls Vidal, who shortly before had co-founded FutFemGol, a digital women’s football media that he still co-directs today: “Saying them off at the airport there were literally two journalists; when they came back, he was collapsed.” Although they didn’t even make it past the group stage, that 2019 World Cup represented a before and after for women’s football in Argentina. Four years later, the players are much more supportive.
In the sports city of Ezeiza, the pre-World Cup training brought together more press than ever before: around seventy journalists. They all agreed that it seemed important to them to be there: “Beyond our work, we are militants for the cause”, admits Vidal. Although the matches will be shown on public television, the city of Buenos Aires has not installed the giant outdoor screens as in the men’s World Cup last December. It does not help that we are in the middle of winter or that two of the three games in the group stage are played in the morning. But the passion for soccer in this country can erupt into a party if the women’s team achieves its goal. And the players know it.
The captain knows well the virtues of the team. “We have strong players with good footwork: we will have to take advantage of that against tall opponents with aerial play”, says Correa, who is calm in the face of pressure: “Getting to the last eight is a challenge as a team, to show that Argentina is growing”. On an international scale, the United States is leading the way: it is one of the most competitive countries in women’s football, along with the Netherlands, Sweden, Brazil and Japan, “although some of those who play in Spain also praise the model”, points out Vidal. For his part, Correa is a fan of the American exporter Hope Solo and the Barça players: “They are an example to follow: they have reached where they are after years of hard work and we all know that no one has given them anything.”
2023-07-23 14:28:47
#night #day #semiprofessional #selection
