"Soccer is my life since I was five years old and I played with the children in the street."
Fayza Haidar
has since been smashing all the roofs she found in her path.
First, when she was a child, she defeated the reluctance of relatives and technicians until she joined a men's soccer club;
later, she became captain of the national team;
And now, at 36, she has just become the first coach of a team of male players.
"I have faced many challenges. At the beginning, society did not accept the idea that a girl could play soccer. My family, originally from Upper Egypt [south of the country], also considered it something exclusive to men," says Haidar in conversation with EL MUNDO in one of its few breaks.
A few weeks ago he signed as a coach for Ideal Goldi, a team from the populous Giza district that plays in the fourth division of the local league.
A milestone in a country where soccer awakens almost as many passions as religion.
Haidar has made his way through men's territory without hesitation, without asking permission.
"I overcame the challenges. I managed to convince my mother and I ended up playing. The biggest problem then was money. In the nineties it was difficult to buy two shoes, one for school and the other for training daily at the club," evokes the young.
His jump from the street to the track happened despite all the initial rejections, twisting the arm of the most stubborn.
"I remember that I went with my brother to a club. The coach did not accept me into the team until he realized that I was better than my brother. When he discovered that I had more passion for the ball than the rest of the boys, he ended up giving up. it was how I played against the lower categories of the best known clubs in Egypt, from Ahli to Zamalek or Enppi ", he slides.
Her career paralleled the first steps of women's football in the land of the pharaohs.
"In 1997 I participated in the first women's league with the Helwan club [a suburb south of Cairo] and the following year I joined the national team. I was the youngest. I was 14 years old and we played the African Cup for the first time. time in history ".
Shouts of "Get back to the kitchen!"
A biography of personal triumphs to which he added a decade ago his commitment to becoming a coach, confirmed by a title certified by the British Premier League.
Seasoned by years dealing in the most unrewarding categories of amateur sport, Haidar has now burst into the professional league determined to keep climbing despite the bewilderment his presence still raises on hostile terrain.
"When I started my career as a coach, there were many men who could not assimilate the idea of a woman guiding them. One of them literally told me: 'It cannot be that a woman trains us. I do not tolerate it'. happen again in the Ideal. The first one who told me ended up accepting my authority after the first two training sessions, when he perceived my experience and my agility and knew that thanks to me he would develop his skills and have better opportunities ", he replies, battered already in the battle.
In his career, the blows have not been lacking.
"Go back to the kitchen!", The fans of the rival club threw at him when they realized that a female was setting the pace from the bench.
"There is still a lot of ignorance. Many Egyptians do not know that women's football exists in our country. We lack media coverage. We lack support and resources," murmurs Haidar, who studied business administration at a university in Cairo and is now preparing his thesis.
"It is important to take into account the financial part. I need to carry out three jobs to have a salary. If the club gave me a decent salary, I could dedicate all day to it and that would be reflected in the results", underlines who dreams of achieving an opportunity to train in the major European leagues.
"Maybe Italy or Spain. I would like to learn in a small club there and then return to Egypt to work in the first or second division," he outlines.
For now, while dreams are coming true, Haidar lives overturned in routine.
On Mondays, from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., training sessions.
On Fridays, party.
"If I could get the Ideal promotion, I would have more opportunities to continue growing," he says.
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