Whistles screech on the sea breeze as three female Somalian coaches inspect a line of women in black and blue headscarves dribbling basketballs.
It is not just the heat that makes it hard: The women are also braving the scorn of their families and the threat of attack by gunmen who think women should not publicly play sports.
“We cannot openly say we are going to play. We put our playing clothes and shoes in school bags and carry them that way to the field and we pretend we are going to school or university,” said Fardawsa Omar Ahmed, 20, a university graduate who also plays volleyball and football.
Photo: Reuters
Her family used to discourage her from playing, but now they accept it, she said.
The women only play in compounds behind high concrete walls, which shield them from the gaze of the curious or those who might attack them.
One of the coaches, Suham Hassan Sobran, 40, played as a child before civil war broke out in Somalia in 1991.
She restarted in 2009, when the Islamist al Shabaab insurgency still controlled large swathes of the city.
Sobran and her two friends train about 30 other women on a court enclosed in Mogadishu’s Hamar Jajab district office.
A police checkpoint lies nearby — such checkpoints are often a target for al Shabaab, which was driven out of Mogadishu in 2011, but still mounts frequent attacks.
On the court’s gate is a painting of a woman playing basketball and slogans promoting good sportsmanship.
Another of the coaches, Faduma Ali Abdirahman, 39, now a mother of six, once played on Somalia’s national team, traveling to Djibouti and Uganda for matches.
The women receive no funding. When they play matches, the trainers pool money to buy a cheap cup as a prize, but they love what they do, and dream of starting teams all over Somalia.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
If the Wild finally break through and win their first playoff series in a decade, Minnesota’s top line likely will be the reason. They were all over the Golden Knights through the first two games of their NHL Western Conference quarter-finals series, which was 1-1 going back to Minnesota for Game 3 today. The Wild tied the series with a 5-2 win on Tuesday. Matt Boldy had three goals and an assist in the first two games, while Kirill Kaprizov produced two goals and three assists. Joel Eriksson Ek, who centers the line, has yet to get on the scoresheet. “I think the biggest
The Minnesota Timberwolves, with so many promising performances spoiled by late mistakes fresh in their memory bank, sure timed this strong finish well. Jaden McDaniels scored a career playoff-high 30 points and spearheaded Minnesota’s stifling defense on an ailing Luka Doncic, and the Timberwolves beat the Los Angeles Lakers 116-104 to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference first-round series in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Friday night. “Jaden never looks tired. He looks like he could play 48 minutes,” said teammate Anthony Edwards, who had 29 points, eight rebounds and eight assists. Julius Randle added 22 points for the Wolves, who outscored
From a commemorative jersey to a stadium in his name, Argentine soccer organizers are planning a slew of tributes to their late “Captain” Pope Francis, eulogized as the ultimate team player. Tributes to the Argentine pontiff, a lifelong lover of the game, who died on Monday at the age of 88, have been peppered with soccer metaphors in his homeland. “Francisco. What a player,” the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) said, describing the first pope from Latin America and the southern hemisphere as a generational talent who “never hogged the ball” and who showed the world “the importance of having an Argentine captain,
RSS