“We fulfilled a dream”, Coach Darío Lencina said at the end of the second international match of the women’s blind soccer team. Well knows how to fulfill dreams the emblematic archer of Los Murcielagos, with whom he has already hung four Paralympic medals and has won a world championship and two Pan-American runners-up. In addition, he was in charge of the Los Murcielaguitos program at the National Center for High Performance Sports (CeNARD) for blind children. Today, He is accompanied by professors Agustín Rojas, Guido Consoni and Sofía Sosa in front of Las Murcielagas, and with that team they have traveled a path that he knows (the men began in 2000, without official support, infrastructure, or places to train) but to which were added the vicissitudes of a pandemic that has not yet completely ceased.
Women’s blind football started in 2016 At the same time, a joint plan was launched between the International Federation of Sports for the Blind (IPSA) and the Argentine Federation of Sports for the Blind (FADeC) to regulate an Argentine league. The objective, to develop the discipline at the national level and multiply the experiences so that by 2022 there will be a tournament with at least 4 or 5 new teams. “There begins to be a lot of challenge, a lot of movement, many girls who also join. Social networks are very important in this, they help to know that this exists and that it can be played. They contact us a lot through the networks to find out where, how and what it is about ”, says Yohana Aguilar, from Cordoba, player of Las Guerreras, of the National Team and brand-new vice president of FADeC.
This year for Las Murcielagas began at CeNARD: “What we do in each concentration is have a physical part, a technical part and a tactical part. Focus a lot on everything that has to do with the game because we can’t train together all the time and we have to learn to get to know each other, to know which are the game schemes that the coaches want. Afterwards, we train the physical part on our own, our coach sends us the plan and we adapt to that routine and do it at home or in the gym, “the player Camila Gorosito described in the Newspaper in March. Digital Discalupa. Later they would have another concentration in the facilities of the Popeye Club in the province of Salta, and in the following months they had to continue with virtual work in order to form the team and the game scheme of the squad for the World Cup in Nigeria, an event scheduled for November that the sanitary crisis forced to suspend. But nevertheless, they were ready to go on the field: it was time to look for a new challenge, which arrived on the last two days of November.
Then the albiceleste team formed by players from the provinces of Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Santa Fe and Salta, finally stood in the central circle of the National Stadium Los Murcielagos of CeNARD and heard the national anthem. The Latin American Cup played between Argentina and Colombia was a milestone. It was broadcast live on FADeC’s Facebook and was attended by Facundo Mota, president of that institution, and Inés Arrondo, Secretary of Sports of the Nation. Both presented the medals and the Cup at the end of a historic contest that it took place exactly 15 years after the two-time world championship won by Los Murcielagos in Buenos Aires.
“I felt excellent,” said captain Gracia Sosa, in charge of opening the scoring on the first day and sealing the glory 1-0 24 hours later. On Monday, when I scored my first goal, I couldn’t believe it, I went to the bench to greet my teammates, my happiness was enormous and that of all the girls too. And the same thing happened to us on Tuesday. Strangely I entered the second game more nervous than the first. But I was very happy because we did things well and the team was able to work. PWe were able to show what we were training all this time and that was very good “. For her part, Yohana Aguilar had the pleasure of scoring the second goal on her debut and after the match she spoke with Girls with Balls about that experience and the future of Las Murcielagas.
–Did you imagine all this?
–We have a lot of confidence in the team we have; There are very good goalkeepers, players with a very good foot, very good closing, good lanes and the truth is that we had a lot of confidence, but hey, then there is what happens inside the field. But we are prepared to face it and when the two games ended it was a great joy. Many people, that also helped us a lot to feel accompanied.
–How was your journey to get here?
–I started from a very young age with sports, at the age of three I was already doing classical dance and from 6 to 12 or 13 I did figure skating, I was in the athletics team and then I went to football, which I met because my brother He played and I accompanied him to train but there was no women’s football; I was the only one who was stuck there.
–Did your family support you?
-Yes, I come from a very football family, where everyone plays. I have four younger brothers and they all play soccer, see a ball and get desperate to go kick, so that was already built into me. However, I was saying many times that I did not until I decided to try and it was a one way road because I could not leave anymore.
–Now is the Copa América coming?
-Yes, there is the idea, obviously we really want to participate and have our first Copa América together with the men, enter within the same calendar. It is something that we have been fighting for for many years and it is one of the dreams that the girls who began to create women’s football here in Córdoba had. So we are going to continue training, to continue learning and to dream, to dream that the Copa América can be held, why not … have it, win it and always continue dreaming and working for this sport and for the National Team.
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