Today, the players meet South Sudan without having really been able to train in a country where, every week, new demonstrators are killed in the repression of demonstrations which since October denounce the putsch of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane.

Not enough to undermine the determination of Ms. Majidi, 30, who has already broken several taboos in the country, released in 2019 from a military-Islamist dictatorship prohibiting, among other things, women from playing football.

To get around this ban, she joined the field on the bench and she became the first woman to coach men in the Arab world where football is the king sport and where women are often sidelined, in politics as well as on the lawn.

"Very First Steps"

If Salma al-Majidi has collected victories with the men's teams, she admits it: "the girls are still taking their very first steps in international tournaments".

The referees of the friendly football match between the women's teams of Sudan and South Sudan in Khartoum, February 16, 2022 ASHRAF SHAZLY AFP

The proof?

Facing neighbors South Sudan, its players lost 6-0. And before that, they lost against Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Lebanon.

"Even if they have much less experience than the others, they are improving," she told AFP.

And above all, in one of the poorest countries in the world, its players not only have to deal with decrepit equipment but also with disorders that disrupt the training schedule and even official matches.

Thus, on October 26, they were to welcome the Algerians for a return match of the African Cup of Nations (CAN) ladies and try to take their revenge after a painful 14 to 0.

But the putsch 24 hours earlier forced the Algerian Fennecs team to leave Sudan in a hurry, before the crackdown began and has since caused nearly a hundred deaths and hundreds of injuries.

But regardless of the cancellations and defeats, sweeps aside captain Fatma Jadal who has long played in secret under the dictatorship.

Players of the Sudanese football team during a friendly match against South Sudan, in Khartoum, February 16, 2022 ASHRAF SHAZLY AFP

At the time, she told AFP, "we had to look for isolated places" because "people were against" the idea of ​​women playing football.

And "when they saw us play, they chased us off the pitch".

Whiplash

At the time, the law provided for lashing in a public place for women accused of having drunk alcohol or worn an outfit deemed "indecent".

Fed up with being treated as "second-class citizens", women were at the forefront of the 2019 "revolution" which forced the army to remove the autocrat from its ranks, Omar al-Bashir.

A few months later, as civilians took over the transition, they forced their military partners to remove several laws that discriminate against women.

Spectators sit at the friendly football match between the women's teams of Sudan and South Sudan, in Khartoum on February 15, 2022 ASHRAF SHAZLY AFP

And they even created the first women's football tournament in the country.

But now the military have disembarked government civilians and, for women, hard-won freedoms could be lost, Captain Jadal worries.

"A purely military power will bring us back to the time of Bashir's restrictions so we really don't want it," she says.

A pessimism that coach Majidi does not share because, for her, the "revolution" has already changed mentalities.

"The Sudanese are more accepting of women's football than before," she said.

And to convince them a little more, Ms. Majidi already has a new goal in mind: the CECAFA women's championship, one of the oldest football championships in Africa, scheduled for March.

"Even without going to the final, we must at least manage to stay in the race for a few laps", she underlines.

© 2022 AFP