“I told the girls: go out there and give it your all. All. When we will be on the plane, returning to Chile, you should think: I gave it my best”, starts Marioly Dore, trainer, profe, of the women’s team of Centro de Entrenamiento y Formación Futbolística Copiapó. Copiapó, the capital of the Atacama region, is a “desert area, very different from here. Here is so green and so beautiful”. The players flew from Santiago de Xile to New York, and from there, to Madrid, where they took a bus to Barcelona to end up in Lloret de Mar, where they are staying. “It’s been a very long trip, but we are very happy. For many of the players, this has been their first trip”, points out Dore, who is only 25 years old.
The CEFF Copiapó women’s team was founded five years ago, but disbanded shortly thereafter, and it’s been four years since Dore took charge of it. “The pandemic hit us when the team was just born and made it impossible for us to come to the MIC in 2020”, laments Dore. “For me, it was very important for the girls to come: to meet teams from other places, to travel. Women’s football in Chile is just beginning to emerge. Some years ago, being a woman and playing football was almost a taboo. That’s why I wanted them to see and get in touch with women’s football here”, explains.
On this matter, Dore also underlines that “this year, a law has been passed in Chile to regulate the salaries of women football players. Now, women can also earn a living playing football. This is very important. For all of us, but especially for girls: now they can start to really believe in women’s football”. “That’s why it’s so important that there are women’s tournaments like the MIC”, highlights. On the one hand, “because it makes girls believe in it. To come here is a great motivation to work, and it’s a rewarding effort”. And, at the same time, “this way, girls have more referents, which is also very important. And so, too, the word spreads: perhaps because we have come, another women’s team from Chile will come next year, and they will work and they will grow. And this way women’s football will grow”, observes Dore, who also stresses that “for me, it’s very important that there are women coaches in women’s teams”. Now, the team faces the tournament “with a lot of desire, with a lot of enthusiasm, but, above all, with a lot of desire to play football, which is what we like the best”.
