Legs stiff from long days in the rice terraces of northern Vietnam, scores of female farmers dressed in colorful cloth headbands and skirts gather on a gravel pitch for a game of soccer.
The all-female squads of Huc Dong commune, a mountainous village only 40km from the Chinese border, have little time to practice and might spend months away from the sport when it is time to tend their crops.
The commitment of the women, who hail from the San Chi ethnic minority group, has earned them respect — plus a little money and fame — in soccer-mad Vietnam.
Photo: AFP
Since they began playing in 2016, the women have featured regularly in national press and across social media.
They are far from the only success story in women’s soccer in Vietnam, with the national side multiple South East Asian championship winners.
Trying to catch a pass from her teammate, striker May Thi Kim yesterday bumped against her competition as she aimed for the goal on the community’s gravel hilltop stadium overlooking the paddy and bamboo-covered valley.
Her team from Mo Tuc village was facing off against friends from neighboring Luc Ngu in a sports event that is part of the traditional Soong Co festival.
As the team dribbled the ball closer to the goalposts, spectators — many of whom are their husbands, children and tourists — cheered the women on.
“I used to watch football on TV,” Kim, 29, said, recalling the beginnings of the team five years ago. “I told the youth union they must let us women play.”
Kim and her fellow players in Huc Dong commune — 14 in all across two teams — play in black skirts, long-sleeved blue shirts and headbands that have been part of their traditional dress for generations.
“There is no difference playing football in either the traditional clothes or sportswear,” Kim said before the match.
That said, their skirts have been shortened, shirts loosened — and some of the women play with colorful long soccer socks.
Midfielder La Thi Thao, 15, said that she might be more comfortable in regular shorts and T-shirt, but is happy to show off the clothing of her tiny community, which numbers just more than 2,000.
It helps “people, including tourists, understand us better,” she said.
All the players in Huc Dong, including Kim, make a living from hard grind on the terraced paddy fields and in the forests, where they grow cinnamon, star anise and pine trees.
Their step count climbs into the tens of thousands each day as they traverse hills and navigate rocky streams.
Although strong, the women did not have the physical agility at the outset that soccer demands.
“When we first started, it hurt every muscle,” Kim said, adding that they had very little time to train due to the combined pressures of farming and housework.
Coach May A Cang has trained them hard to improve their flexibility, asking the women to run regularly to limber up their muscles.
It was tough work at first, with the women soaking their legs in warm salted water and medicinal leaves for pain relief — but gradually their bodies adapted to the training.
Cang said that even he was initially hesitant when his wife, a squad member, wanted to join the team.
“I thought her playing could hurt her legs and then she could not go to the field to work,” he said. “But she told me she would train and would know how to play properly.”
Major League Baseball (MLB) star Shohei Ohtani wants his former interpreter to hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of baseball cards he says were fraudulently bought using his money. The Los Angeles Dodgers star is also requesting Ippei Mizuhara, who previously pleaded guilty to bank and tax fraud for stealing nearly US$17 million from the unsuspecting athlete, return signed collectible baseball cards depicting Ohtani that were in Mizuhara’s “unauthorized and wrongful possession,” court documents filed on Tuesday said. The legal filing alleges Mizuhara accessed Ohtani’s bank account beginning in about November 2021, changing his security protocols so that he
US skier Mikaela Shiffrin said she sustained an abrasion on her left hip and that something “stabbed” her when she crashed during her second run of an Audi FIS Ski World Cup giant slalom race on Saturday, doing a flip and sliding into the protective fencing. Shiffrin stayed down on the edge of the course for quite some time as the ski patrol attended to her. She was taken off the hill on a sled and waved to the cheering crowd before going to a clinic for evaluation. “Not really too much cause for concern at this point, I just
CLASH OF MANAGERS: Brighton’s Fabian Hurzeler and Russell Martin of Southampton accused each other of disrespect, while both were booked Southampton on Friday were denied a priceless victory by a controversial decision as they drew with hosts Brighton & Hove Albion 1-1 in the Premier League. Kaoru Mitoma spectacularly headed Brighton into a first-half lead and Flynn Downes hammered home an equalizer an hour in. Minutes later teammate Cameron Archer converted a cross from Saints substitute Ryan Fraser. A video assistant referee check of more than four minutes eventually decided that Archer was onside, but then penalized Adam Armstrong, who was offside, but did not touch the ball, for interfering with goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen. “I find it hard to accept,” Southampton manager Russell Martin
Mary McGee, a female racing pioneer and subject profiled in an Oscar-contending documentary, Motorcycle Mary, has died, her family said. She was 87. “McGee’s unparalleled achievements in off-road racing and motorcycle racing have inspired generations of athletes that followed in her footsteps,” her family said in a statement. The family said McGee died of complications from a stroke at her home in Gardnerville, Nevada, on Wednesday, the day before the release of the short documentary Motorcycle Mary, on ESPN’s YouTube channel. Seven-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton was an executive producer on the film, which became available globally on Thursday. Its premiere
RSS