It’s been a year since the Taliban overran Afghanistan. Now that international troops have left, the entire country is under the control of radical Islamists for the second time since the 1996-2001 regime. In desperation, thousands try to leave their homes. There are dramatic scenes at the border crossing to Pakistan and at the airport in Kabul. In the midst of the days of fear and at the airfield in the capital: the Afghan national women’s soccer team and its center back Mursal.

“I hid at home – just like all my teammates,” the 19-year-old, who now lives a safe distance from the Taliban in Australia, tells ntv.de in a video call about the day the terrorist group took power. “Some of us got messages on our cell phones from people who said they would hand us over to the Taliban because we were female soccer players.”

The radical Islamists do not allow women and girls to play any sports, let alone soccer. Mursal recounts how the new rulers even obtained players’ files from the Afghan Football Association. How the fear grew of being discovered, caught – and killed. “Every time I talked to my teammates on the phone via video call, we saw the horror in each other’s eyes,” she recalls. “‘What are we going to do,’ we thought desperately.” The players hurry from safe house to safe house. Always in danger of being discovered.

“They could find us on Google”

The women’s soccer team contacts Khalida Popal, the former captain of the national team who was forced to leave her home country for exile in Denmark back in 2016 due to threats from the Taliban. Together with former national team coach Kelly Lindsey, ex-assistant coach and former U.S. Marine Haley Carter, human rights lawyer Kat Craig and representatives of the international players’ union FIFPro, Popal is able to persuade Australia to issue visas to the players. They depended on the network. It offered them emotional support, but also logistical support. From the safety of their own four walls, the supporters took over what the players could not provide.

After a week in hiding, the national women’s team heads for the airport. “The Taliban were everywhere, we were hugely scared and many of us were crying,” Mursal says. “We tried to hide our faces by wearing protective mouth-nose masks and hijabs. Eventually, pictures of us were circulating, people could find us on Google.”

After “very hard days” in fear at the airfield, Mursal and her teammates were finally allowed to board a plane. Carter, the U.S. Marine, had made long speeches to the military explaining why the soccer players had to be taken out of the country. It’s to a camp for refugees in Dubai. “There we continued to fear because we didn’t know if we might have to go back to Afghanistan because the process with the papers didn’t work.”

When entry to Australia finally succeeds, Mursal can breathe a sigh of relief, “but we also felt enormous pressure because our families were still in Afghanistan. They asked us not to post anything on social media because it would have been very dangerous for them on the ground.” Three months later, Mursal’s brother, who was a soldier in the Afghan army, is kidnapped by the Taliban. He manages to escape after 13 days and tells his sister that the terrorist group also mentioned her and accused him of allowing her to play soccer. Mursal’s entire family then flees to Iran. This is the only reason why she can now speak openly.

“You are married to soccer”

Mursal is going through an emotional, “very heavy” conflict. Trauma after trauma. For her safety and freedom, she has to leave her entire family behind, live separated from her mother, father and brother since then, and get an extra job to send money to Iran. Just because she loves soccer. And how she does.

All Mursal wants to do growing up in Afghanistan is play soccer. “Football, that was all our hopes and dreams combined,” she says. “Football is my first love.” At first, her family opposes her new passion, telling her that in Afghan culture, girls don’t play soccer. But Mursal is no more discouraged by this than she is by people calling her names on the way to practice. Who want to ban women’s soccer even before the Taliban regime comes back.

The center back soon has a special love for FC Barcelona – and for Sergio Ramos, who spent years defending for Barça’s rivals Real Madrid, of all teams, and now plays for Paris Saint-Germain. Mursal’s eyes light up when she talks about the legendary number 4, which of course she also wears on her jersey: “Ramos is the best defender I’ve seen in my whole life. We play the same position and I always watch videos of him.”

“Once my mother said to me: ‘You are married to soccer'”. True, answers the 19-year-old today, and laughs. But her emotional state is very different when the Taliban steal her dream and hope of a soccer career, of her passion. “My heart broke. I cried all night until the next morning.” One of the thoughts that keeps running through her head as she flees the airport in Kabul: “What if we’re never allowed to play soccer again?”

Bayern Munich Australia’s

But everything turns out differently. In Australia – as they look for work, go to school, grapple with a new language, culture and life – the women mutate into symbols of hope and strength thanks to their courage, strength and dedicated helpers. A voice for Afghan women and refugees worldwide. Although the trauma is still deep-seated, Mursal and her friends are starting to play soccer again. They are given the chance by the Melbourne Victory club, the FC Bayern Munich of Australian soccer.

Craig Foster, a former Australian international who became a human rights activist after his active career, is missing pieces of the mosaic of those helping around FIFPro managing director Jonas Baer-Hoffmann. John Diulica, the sports director of Melbourne Victory, offers Foster his help, and in early February 2022, he gets the call. “They had to get used to the new situation. But at some point they made decision to play as a team and under the flag of Afghanistan. Craig contacted me. And we saw it as our responsibility to help these young women,” Diulica tells ntv.de.

The federation is quick to approve the team, and FIFA is also granting permission to play. “It’s like moving from the Bundesliga to the Premier League,” Diulica explains. But of course it’s not a switch between two top European leagues, but rather one that poses the greatest danger to the players themselves. Their names are not to reach Afghanistan. The families who stayed behind fear repression. But the registration succeeds because everyone helps, because everyone wants these women to be able to play soccer again.

Cheering like Cristiano Ronaldo

The players aren’t getting a woods-and-meadows coach, but the most successful in Australian women’s soccer history, Jeff Hopkins. “Then when we were accepted as a team – that was an incredible moment for us. It’s the first time we’ve been able to train and play in such a professional environment,” says Mursal.

The first match, in April, is against an eleven formed in the 1980s by refugees from East Timor. The Afghans win the second game 10-0, sliding to their knees after their goals and turning away in jubilation like Cristiano Ronaldo. They emulate their role models and for a moment everything is forgotten. “Those were beautiful moments,” Diulicia says. All of this, he explains, gives the game a new meaning. One that goes far beyond the 90 minutes on the pitch.

“When we step on the soccer field, we send a message to all the girls around the world,” Mursal also explains. Even if there are hard days and you think “everyone is over,” you can still overcome hardships and defeat evil. “We are the voice for the voiceless,” she says proudly. “Every girl has that special power and can do the greatest things if just given a chance.”

Chances and opportunities that girls and women in Afghanistan are now once again denied. While they have been allowed to attend school for the past 20 years, everything after elementary school is now forbidden. Veiling is the law, even the burqa in many areas of the country. In a new report, the international aid organization World Vision warns that Afghanistan’s children, especially girls, are at risk of starvation, child labor and forced marriage.

“Football is our everything”

While the world public is now paying brief attention to the children and the dire humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan on the anniversary of the Taliban’s takeover, this harsh reality continues to be everyday life for Mursal. That’s because she has lively exchanges with many local women and girls – including a couple of female soccer players from the national team who failed to escape. “They are still hiding and they are not allowed to play soccer. It’s painful as hell. They ask me, ‘Mursal, is there any way we can leave Afghanistan and play soccer like you?'”

Unfortunately, Mursal says, she can’t help them. And that’s why she plays soccer for all these women and girls, she says. “We want to be a voice for those who are not allowed to say anything against the Taliban. We want to tell the world: please help them, they really need the help.” Like all other girls, Afghans must have the chance to live the normal life of children, to learn – and to play (soccer).

Even as these young women and girls never fade into oblivion, Mursal and her teammates in Australia at Melbourne Victory continue to chase their dream. Without their homeland. Without their families. Without their loved ones. Soccer becomes a kind of surrogate family for them, teammates become sisters. “We are far away from our families, but we have soccer,” Mursal says. “Soccer is our everything.”