Imane takes a break during a game in Oak Brook

Worldwide, Girls' Soccer Goes Beyond the Field

From: Lisa Matuska
Length: 03:28

Four young Moroccan female soccer players step outside their borders and expectations to come to Oak Brook, Illinois for a women's soccer leadership camp. Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: Worldwide, Girls' Soccer Goes Beyond the Field
From: Lisa Matuska

Img_0247_small Usually summer is a down time for youth soccer but out in Oak Brook recently, a sports icon held an intense soccer camp. About 60 teen girls attended Julie Foudy's Sports Leadership Academy. Many of these girls want to become pros but that's not what the camp's about. It's about carrying the sport they love-soccer-and the skills they gain from it, throughout their lives. But a few young women came to the camp from Morocco and Afghanistan where they have little chance of even continuing to play soccer as adults. Lisa Matuska spent some time at the camp to see how one Moroccan girl is challenging the conventional idea of women's soccer in her country.

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Piece Description

Usually summer is a down time for youth soccer but out in Oak Brook recently, a sports icon held an intense soccer camp. About 60 teen girls attended Julie Foudy's Sports Leadership Academy. Many of these girls want to become pros but that's not what the camp's about. It's about carrying the sport they love-soccer-and the skills they gain from it, throughout their lives. But a few young women came to the camp from Morocco and Afghanistan where they have little chance of even continuing to play soccer as adults. Lisa Matuska spent some time at the camp to see how one Moroccan girl is challenging the conventional idea of women's soccer in her country.

Transcript

FOUDY: How we all doing?

This is Julie Foudy. She’s a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and World Cup Champion. For most of the 60 girls sitting in front of Foudy, she’s a national hero. But one girl seems less impressed. Imane Sallah says she doesn’t know much about Julie Foudy, or any female soccer player for that matter.

SALLAH: My favorite soccer player is Zinedine Zidane.

It turns out Imane’s favorite player is a man who was on the French national team. Imane’s choice reflects the state of women’s soccer in her home country of Morocco. Imane grew up watching men play the game.

SALLAH: My brother was a soccer player and I was always going with them to watch him play then I love this game and I like to start playing.

Imane was 8 when she started playing. Now she’s 19. She’s played in the United States and Germany. She says it’s clear that in Morocco no one stops girls from playing...
Read the full transcript