Peruvian women, in ‘fulbito Andino,’ find light in the darkness
Indigenous Andean women don colorful skirts(polleras) and play on weekends as respite from hard labors at home and in the fields.
Category: Women’s Football
Jan 05, 2010 | 0 comments
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Remembering Eudy, KwaThema’s brightest, killed on its darkest night
Eudy Simelane, former midfielder for the senior South African women’s national team, Banyana Banyana, shaped her world around football before her murder in Apr 08.
Aug 30, 2009 | 11 comments
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The ‘wrong-footed soccer maiden’ who bridged Manhattan, Beijing
Gay Talese, following the Women’s World Cup final on 10 Jul 99, takes interest in the Chinese player who misses a penalty kick, Liu Ying. With podcast »
Jul 18, 2009 | 4 comments
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Where Cossacks held sway, women’s football adds international spice
Even women’s football in Ukraine has shown effects of globalization, with players from South Africa, Spain, Mexico and Australia joining one club in 2008.
Northern latitudes helped make Marta a player of Sol importance
Marta Vieira da Silva, 22, announces that she will leave her home of five years—Umeå, Sweden, the northern coastal city that nurtured her game and personality but that could not keep her from the bigger world. With timeline and podcast »
‘The negotiation was long and difficult,’ says Farah of creating Marta’s LA story
Drawing primarily from online sources in Brazil and Sweden (links provided), our timeline summarizes some three months of negotiations over Marta Vieira da Silva‘s Jan 09 transfer to Los Angeles Sol.
Jan 10, 2009 | 0 comments
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USA | Taking a second chance at building women’s premier league
The Atlanta Beat’s successors announce their ambition to join Women’s Professional Soccer in 2010—a second, perhaps final, chance to give professional women’s football a foothold in North America.
Dec 31, 2008 | 5 comments
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Women’s football | North Americans on a mission as ‘new Portuguese’
Portugal since 2004 has tapped players from the United States and Canada for its national women’s teams. To Portuguese coaches and football authorities, these North American imports are “new Portuguese.”
Nov 01, 2008 | 2 comments
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Brazil | Marta’s story deserves to be told, but who deserves to tell it?
A package of articles published Oct 5 on Brazilian Web portal Terra details the unique pressures facing Diego Graciano in promoting his biography of sensational 22-year-old Marta Vieira da Silva (see earlier articles, Sept 15 and 12 Sept 07). (Oct 13)
Oct 13, 2008 | 0 comments
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Women’s football | ‘This book is dedicated to other Martas, barefoot and dirty’
Translation of the preface and prologue to Você é mulher, Marta (You Are a Woman, Marta!) (2008), the new biography of Marta Vieira da Silva by Diego Graciano. (Sept 15)
Women’s football | From Amish heartland, FC Indiana builds ‘multicultural vision’
FC Indiana in four years has become a force in women’s club soccer in the United States, winning two Women’s Premier Soccer League titles and one U.S. Open Cup. But despite origins within a Midwest Amish agricultural enclave, its influence extends worldwide.
Jul 18, 2008 | 8 comments
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Iran | In clothing meant to conceal, football becomes ‘a means of fighting’
Toward the end of a Jun 17 National Public Radio interview, Marlene Assmann of BSV Al-Dersimspor discloses that her multicultural Kreuzberg side from Berlin again will brave Islamic strictures for a second friendly match in Iran.
Jun 19, 2008 | 0 comments
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Women’s football | Maize husks mark lines in Mzuzu, says Mr. Happy
One of the most lyrical descriptions of traveling to women’s football in Africa comes from the recent e-mail newsletter of Africa Unplugged in Nkhata Bay, Malawi. A revival of the charity’s Nkhata Bay United Sisters FC (see 15 Jan 07) involved several players participating in regional trials for the Malawi senior women’s team. (Mar 19)
Cinema | ‘Football Under Cover’ receives unveiling
Promotional material for the documentary Football Under Cover (see interview with director Ayat Najafi, 29 Sept 07) celebrates the display of “Frauenpower” in its chronicle of an Apr 06 friendly between BSV Al-Dersimspor of Kreuzberg, Berlin, and the Iranian women’s national team.
Feb 06, 2008 | 2 comments
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Women’s football | The hard playing surface of Palestine (w/ video)
Bethlehem, West Bank, Jan 11 | The statement of the biblical Ruth, the Moabite, a poor woman gleaning in Bethlehem (“house of bread”) behind reapers of barley strikes a parallel with the women’s football team from Palestine, taking its passion and pleasure from scraps left by a patriarchal culture and occupying authorities.
Jan 11, 2008 | 2 comments
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Cinema | ‘Die besten Frauen,’ the best women (w/ video)
Ian Plenderleith, not for the first time, has done great service by offering a synopsis and highlights in translation of director Britta Becker‘s 90-minute documentary Die besten Frauen der Welt (“The Best Women in the World,” Jan 7).
The film chronicles Germany’s championship at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Sept 07 and, along the way, points to “the obvious contrasts between the Germans and the US team that failed to advance beyond the semi-final.”
Women’s football | Hope Solo earns our truth-telling award
Jan 1 | The first recipient of a new award for truth-telling in world football is Hope Solo, who stood tall in goal for the U.S. national team at the Women’s World Cup and again when defending her version of truth after a bizarre goalkeeper switch before a Sept 27 semifinal versus Brazil.
California, Ghana and a football exchange
Aiming to expand the reach of women’s football abroad and to build cultural awareness at home, San Francisco Bay Area coach Robert Sackey for the first time takes a girls’ team to his native Ghana. (Dec 17)
Dec 17, 2007 | 0 comments
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Morocco | Players on a masculine stage
Rabat, Morocco | Fulbright fellow Nicole Matuska wonders why players with the women’s club side she has been following for the past year are not watching the Women’s World Cup. “A paradox still exists. In spite of [their] achievements, the football field remains a masculine stage.”
Oct 01, 2007 | 9 comments
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