“But will she play too?”; Mari Palma reflects on female occupation in football

That happened a long time ago, but I’ve never forgotten the look of distrust/contempt the boy put on this question. At the time, I must have been about 14 or 15 years old and my brothers, about 19. And the boys who were playing were divided into this age group too: some more children, others more teenagers.

They were in 2 teams of like 4 or 5 on each side and we were just playing the 3 in a corner so we thought it would be cool to join them. In the minds of my brothers, who grew up including me in everything they did, it was only natural for me to play the game. Or any other activity I wanted. But apparently, in the minds of the other boys, it wasn’t quite like that. They already excluded me without me even having taken the ball.

And I, still a child knowing the world and its prejudices, didn’t really know how to respond. Lucky I had my brothers who did it for me and said “yeah she will play. And sure she plays better than most of you”. Okay, I didn’t need that pressure on me (laughs), but I understood that the intention was good. They believed in me a lot and wanted to see me shut up all those boys.

I confess that I don’t remember if that’s exactly what happened, but I remember exactly that conversation before the game started. She made a big impression on me because it was one of the first times I felt out of place as a girl. I was just a child who grew up playing ball with his brothers with all the freedom in the world, but was prevented from taking part in the game by other people. And I don’t think I need to say that it wasn’t the last time that happened to me.

There were countless times that I heard that “women don’t know how to play football” or that I needed to talk about the lineup of the Corinthians team in the 1998 Brazilian Championship final (I was even there) to prove that I could be part of the guys’ group. And for a long time I did that because I thought I needed to be accepted. It took a while for me to understand that I didn’t need anything. But by then I had already grown up and lost a little of my close relationship with football.

I confess that I walked away from my team’s games and stopped following them a long time ago, but there is still a spark inside me that makes me shiver every time I see a ball rolling. Especially if it’s on the foot of a woman on the pitch – which, it’s important to say, I didn’t even think was possible as a kid. That’s why the Women’s World Cup has been messing with me so much. But not with 34-year-old Mariana, with 10-year-old Mariana. She didn’t continue playing because of life’s contingencies, but she’s still here. Today she would have much more courage to respond to those boys, but since she can’t do that, she is happy to see many other women on the field shutting them up. Yes, they will play too. And they won’t stop here, no. Our fight for our space, whether in football or anywhere else, is just beginning.