Foundations of women’s soccer are resurrected in ‘Copa 71’

Brandi Chastain, former World Cup winner with the United States in 1999, holds an electronic tablet while watching images of the Azteca Stadium at the 1971 Women’s World Cup. Incredible, it’s bursting at the seams. Is it a manly party? Wait, wow, it’s women’s soccer!emphasizes in one of the images of the documentary Copa 71amazed by the roar of a giant who supports his colleagues without being known.

In soccer there are feats that remained forgotten for a long time, since their simple existence bothers the leaders of the most popular sport in the world. Mexico 1971 is one of those milestones hiddendue to FIFA’s opposition to its realization, so it has no official validity as it is not organized by said federation.

They took an eraser and erased everything, maybe because we are womendeclared in the documentary Elvira Aracén, a Mexican soccer player who competed in the tournament.

The green areas of the National Center for the Arts (Cenart) were converted last night into a soccer field, without the intention of kicking a ball, but with the purpose of publicizing Copa 71unpublished images of the world championship, which were compiled for the visual work directed by James Erskin and Rachel Ramsay, as part of the documentary series Ambulante, whose first screenings in Mexico took place last weekend.

In the 90 minutes of duration, equal to the regular time of a soccer match, the story of the 1971 World Cup is told from all fronts, with players from the participating teams, who narrate their experiences, which expose aspects of women’s football from Europe , South America and the host, Mexico. As well as his astonishment with the response of the Mexican public at a time when machismo was even more prevalent in sports and the simple action of playing soccer was considered men’s exclusive.

In secret

I played hide and seek because my father told me that women were only for the homeshared an athlete. The boys were already playing on grass and we were still playing on dirt, but we didn’t see it, we just wanted to play, maybe it was a political actdeclares another of the protagonists.

Around 110 thousand fans gathered in 1971 at the Coloso de Santa Úrsula to attend an unprecedented sporting event. The final between Mexico and Denmark registered a historic audience figure. Mexico, Italy, France, England, Denmark and Argentina competed in the second world championship in the history of women’s soccer, organized by the International and European Women’s Soccer Federation (FIEFF).

FIFA History

FIFA has a record of a world championship starting in 1991, in which the organization was responsible for organizing the events. That year the United States became champion, after beating Norway.

Dozens of young people watched the film screening, some couples discussed the impact of those warriors in today’s sport and lamented its low diffusion, others simply enjoyed the event.

“I didn’t know what they got. In Mexico we asked to reach the ‘fifth game’ and we already had finalists for a World Cup. “They are badasses!” declared a spectator.

The documentary shows how in 1971 people flooded the streets, there was rejoicing with the arrival of the teams at the airport, for a public that a year before had seen Brazil crowned. Skin. The hallways and stands of the Azteca and Jalisco stadiums became a party.

Among the images, you can see fierce sweeps by the soccer players in the semifinal between Mexico and Italy, where the squad blue demands clarifications from the tricolors for controversial arbitration decisions that they argue led to the victory of the locals. Elena Schiavo, fierce captain of the Italians, was ironic when remembering the plays that highlighted her as one of the harder and stronger in the countryside.

The documentary, which was part of the Toronto International Film Festival, BFI London, AFI Fest and the Gothenburg Film Festival, is narrated by the famous tennis player Serena Williams, and tells the stories of the pioneers of the tournament and those who paved the path for the current generations of women’s football.

It was produced by three of the greatest exponents of women’s sport: sisters Serena and Venus Williams, as well as world champion soccer player, Alex Morgan.

With the decade of the 60s as a prelude, when the feminist movement gained strength along with the explosion of the media such as television, women demonstrated to step on the fields from which they had been banned for years, in the case of Europe. because of a ban that came with the First World War.

Women’s soccer has changed drastically since then, due to the push that new protagonists have given it on and off the field. Now the World Cups, organized and recognized by FIFA, are a beacon for millions of people around the world.

These documentaries are something wonderful to show that women’s soccer already existed, but totally amateur and now the new generations must overcome what we did because of all the growth that the Mexican league has hadmentions Alicia Skin Woe,

The final of the last Women’s World Cup between Spain and England reached record audiences in both countries with more than 23 million viewers, according to figures from the Royal Spanish Football Federation. In this contest, La Roja was proclaimed world champion for the first time.