Shabnam Salahshoor hasn’t always worn fluorescent pink jackets and had long curly hair. In a café near Place de la République in Paris, the 24-year-old Afghan refugee takes out her phone and finds a photo of herself as a teenager, with pants tapered at the ankles, a white sports jacket, and short hair. A typical footballer’s look. “I even shaved two stripes on the side to look like Ronaldo,” she says. Back then, she lived in Herat, Afghanistan’s third most populous city, and dressed as a boy to play football in a conservative society that disapproved of her playing a sport reserved for men.
This didn’t stop Shabnam Salahshoor from developing a passion for the game from a very young age. “When I saw players lifting trophies, winning medals, I dreamed of being in their place one day,” says the woman who diligently followed the players of the Herat club, which had defeated Kabul multiple times. In 2013, as the country continued its development and sports initiatives multiplied nationwide, a coach came to her school to recruit players for the city’s first women’s football team.