Girls battle for the soccer ball in Bocana de Paiwas, Nicaragua
On a dusty pitch under intense tropical sun, 22 adolescent girls battle for control of the soccer ball. The team “Stars of Tomorrow” trades kicks with their rivals for today, the “Crazy Girls.” The girls come to the small town of Bocana de Paiwas from its barrios and nearby rural communities for their weekly game.
The field slopes steeply down to a wide river and each time the ball goes out there’s a rush to save it. “Maria!” the girls call to a player on the sidelines, “The ball went in the river, go get it!”
Yet heat and errant soccer balls are the least of the challenges these girls and young women face: some have travelled hours by foot or horseback to get here and will return to hard work at home after the game. While many girls have supportive families, some are called names by those who disapprove of girls playing sports.
Their league is designed precisely to combat those attitudes; it’s named “A Goal against Machismo” and the players range in age from 10 to 25. Their presence on the field is a statement of girls’ right to play a sport.
Flor de Maria Espinoza is the goalie for the team “Women with Rights” and the president of the league. She says the main goal of the league is “to show that soccer is something for girls and women.” But another, equally important goal for these girls is that they have fun. Espinoza explains, “We want them to relax and to enjoy themselves.”
After 90 minutes of play, the game goes to the Crazy Girls, 1-0, and the young women retire to the shade of the eucalyptus trees that line the field.
Girls playing soccer was a rarity in their community until 2008, when young women suggested the idea to a local feminist group, the Casa de la Mujer. Now the league includes four teams with a total of 52 players.
Espinoza explains, “There’s a lot of machismo in this area, and we were discriminated against before. They called us ‘weirdos,’ ‘lazy,’ and ‘lesbians’ just because we were women on the soccer field.” While those attitudes persist in some, the women have carved out a space of their own.
And their league doesn’t just teach soccer skills. In addition to practice, the players commit to attending workshops on sexual diversity, sexual and reproductive rights, and teenage pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infections. They also serve as guests on radio shows broadcast from the town’s community feminist station, “The Woman’s Word.”
Some of the girls have been playing for years now, and the community on their teams is evident.
Heydy Espinoza is eighteen and has been playing in the league since its beginning. She says she loves soccer “because we’re all together and we’re all football fans.” The best part of the league for her is “having fun with my friends, playing soccer but also going to workshops and events.” She’s travelled to the nearby town of Rio Blanco for a tournament, and has hosted teams from other rural communities.
But fourteen year-old Yarixa just played her first game in the league. She’s played with kids in her rural community before, but never on an organized team. Smiling broadly, she says, “I feel happy after today.”
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