Today I am going to leave aside my usual notes about cryptocurrencies and economic issues of our daily life, it is not that I am tired of this topic, on the contrary, to write about this new economy I have enough words, however today I felt the need to write about another subject: soccer but from my perspective as a woman lover of this sport.
I grew up breathing, watching, eating, talking and loving this sport of the freckled ball, as a child I like to watch the games of the league of my country and Napoli of Italy with my dad and my older brother, in this way I learned to love it to be in tune with the men in my family. I remember when adults would ask me, girl, what do you want to be when you grow up: I would always answer: soccer player, but the adults would always bring me down from the clouds with the most idiotic comment they could utter: "soccer is not for girls".
In my childhood I had the silly idea that there were activities only for girls and others only for boys, and soccer was one of those things that were denied to me (and I had to accept without complaining). At school we girls had to practice sports such as volleyball or gymnastics while they had access to the fun on the big green rectangle. On the other hand, my friends at school were not too keen to stop combing dolls and cooking imaginary menus during recess to form a girls' team.
But my desire to play overcame the reasons of others, I asked my brother to let me play with him and his friends, which always caused him some conflict because he wanted to include me but the rest of the team flatly refused, essentially because I was a girl and for their concepts this game is not for women. The more they told me no, the more I insisted that they would, until they finally accepted me under the warning that they would not be kind to my physical integrity.
I had never felt so much happiness in my life until then, in my first game with the boys I finally felt the joy of dodging the rivals, kicking the ball with effect and I even managed to score a goal, to my joy, the astonishment of my teammates and the misfortune of the rivals. They couldn't believe it, a girl playing against boys, playing well and silencing mouths. Step by step I gained the respect of the boys and although I could hear the mockery towards me questioning my sexuality I didn't care, I simply felt free and happy playing this sport that I love so much.
Now I am the mother of a little boy who inherited my love and desire for this sport but what I love most about my little Ruben is his great sense of solidarity and respect for humanity, values that I always try to teach him every day of my life. Once he stopped a game and turned to some of his teammates who refused the presence of girls on the court, to which he told them: "they also have the right to play like us and if they don't understand that they shouldn't play here". Never in my life had I felt so proud to be a mother, a woman and a soccer lover before such a beautiful and simple act of human solidarity of my son and his particular ethics of the game, because he understands that the differences are in the way of practicing the sport, not in who plays it.
