When Mexico organized a team for the qualifiers for the first “official” Women’s World Cup in 1991, Vargas was 37 years old. And this is how the sport survived in Mexico until FIFA moved from suppressing women’s soccer to supporting it.īy that time it was too late for La Pelé. Still, girls and women-including Alicia Vargas-continued to play in the “liga de la Cabeza de Juárez,” playing on a “dirt and rock filled field…for years,” and relying on volunteer support and word of mouth. Despite the success of the women’s team in 19, and the creation of a national league with teams from 16 states in 1972, conflicts with management and between the women’s league and the FMF meant that the sport quickly receded into the background. Already over 20,000 women played the sport around the country the future for women’s soccer in Mexico looked bright. Still, she decided to remain in Mexico with her family.
This offer would be harder to turn down: nearly 100,000 pesos for four months, with housing included. In 1971, after el Tri Femenil defeated England 4-0 in front of approximately 80,000 people at the Estadio Azteca, Real Torino again offered her the opportunity to play in Italy. She turned down the offer then, claiming that she preferred Mexico. Real Torino offered La Pelé a contract to stay in Italy, at the young age of 16. And before the end of el Tri Femenil’s trip to Italy in 1970, European coaches had taken notice. Her skill quickly caught the attention of the Mexican national team coaches-volunteers from the AMFF.
However, she talked her way onto the pitch during a game, and in eight minutes had shown enough of her skill that Guadalajara asked her to join the team. Still, playing in the streets gave her great touch with both feet, a skill which she used either to dribble around opponents ( a la her favorite player, Garrincha), to lay passes off to her teammates, or to unleash a powerful shot.Īccording to Maritza Carreño, Vargas initially had difficulty finding a team with which to play since she was out of shape. Against the wishes of her parents, Vargas continued to play, often punished and sometimes dragged from games by her ears. Born in 1954, Vargas began playing as a youth with her brothers and other boys in the street. By 1971, however, Mexico awoke to the potential of women’s soccer.Īnd the undisputed star of the Mexican women’s team-and Latin American women’s soccer-was Alicia Vargas, aka La Pelé. Scant media coverage of the team-only el Heraldo de Mexico sent a representative to Italy-meant that most Mexicans were unaware of the event at all. Instead, interest grew rapidly by word of mouth and volunteer activity, and by 1970 the AMFF formed to oversee the sport.ĭuring the 1970 championship few people noticed the women’s team at all. Teams played 60-minute games on public fields that were little more than dirt and rock, and had no support to speak of from Mexico’s soccer institutions. By 1969, the Liga América held Mexico’s first women’s championship, boasting 17 teams in and around Mexico City. It seems likely that women began playing soccer in the 1950s, and that it gained impetus and popularity in 1963 after a tour by two Costa Rican teams. The origins of women’s soccer in Mexico are somewhat obscured. Over 100,000 people packed into the Estadio Azteca to see the Mexico lose to Denmark 3-0 in the finals. The following year, Mexico hosted the second women’s championship. Shocking everyone-including themselves-el Tri Femenil finished third. Organized by volunteers in the Mexican Association of Women’s Football (AMFF) and discouraged by the official FMF, the women went to the inaugural women’s championship in 1970 in Italy.
Long before there was Abby Wambach or Maribel Domínguez, Alex Morgan, Charlyn Corral, or Marta, there was Alicia La Pelé Vargas.įor a fleeting moment, before FIFA recognized the existence of women’s soccer, the Mexican women’s national team was a world power.
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