I was born and raised in Rosario, Argentina, a city obsessed with soccer. Or how we call it back home, fútbol. My earliest memory isn’t even a memory. It’s the recreation I made up in my mind from my parents’ words. How in 1978, when Argentina hosted the first FIFA World Cup, I celebrated each goal crawling around with the family dog on the roof of my grandfather’s house. I cheered euphorically along with the rest of my town on my young father’s shoulders when our national team won the tournament. The men’s national team.
The men soccer players became gods, idols, role models, and heroes.
No one ever told me that in 1971, just a few years before, seventeen women had represented Argentina in the Women’s World Cup in Mexico under heroic circumstances. They had no coach, proper equipment, medical team, or any kind of support from the Argentine Football Federation. I wouldn’t learn about them until I was already an adult.
“There’s a saying in soccer that those who can’t play become referees. But as a woman, I wasn’t even allowed this alternative. So I made my own alternative.”
Growing up, I spent countless hours at the soccer pitch, but never as a participant. I watched my brothers play the beautiful game that I loved and win tournaments. They had wonderful offers to travel the world and get an education, but I didn’t even have the chance to play–other than in the vacant field in the back of my building in my barrio.
There’s a saying in soccer that those who can’t play become referees. But as a woman, I wasn’t even allowed this alternative. So I made my own alternative. I combined my love of words and soccer and became a writer.
When I moved to the United States to attend college, I was so homesick for Rosario, my family, and Sunday soccer games that a story was born in my heart. I wanted to subvert the stereotype and create an unlikely hero. One whom I’d met in the streets of my barrio but never saw reflected in books or much less, on the pitch. That’s how Camila Hassan was born. But her story wasn’t only about her journey as a futbolera. I couldn’t ignore the reality of the society in which she grows up. The Ni Una Menos movement started as grassroots activism in support of safe abortion and which spread to demand equality and the right to live, love, work, study, and play as women, both trans and cis.
As I came to grow as a person, so did Camila. She discovered that she would fight against every obstacle to achieve her goals–even if the main obstacle lived in her home or was the love of her life, a golden boy following his own dreams.
In the pages of my newest novel, FURIA, I had the opportunity to pay homage to the strong women who raised me and guided me. All in the background of a city with no founder that thrives at the shore of a magnificent river.
Dear reader, I’d love to share a world that may be different from yours. It contains a heroine whose dreams and hopes may resonate with you and inspire you to also fight for your dreams.
