Girls’ football in Hanoi

When I tell locals that my daughters play football, I am usually greeted with a patronising smile. “No”, I protest, “They are really quite good too”. The negative attitudes towards girls’ and women’s sport that were prevalent when I was growing up are well-rooted here too. Of course, sexist attitudes towards girls’ sport are still easy to find in the West, but there are growing pockets of enlightenment.

In the Under-13 division of the Hanoi Youth Football League, the only girls I have seen are the five on Jemima and Saskia’s teams. And unsurprisingly, these five are all on the UNIS Middle School girls’ team too. In preparation for a tournament, the school arranged a concentrated afternoon of girls’ football, inviting another international school in Hanoi, and, what’s this, a couple of Vietnamese teams too? Have they ever kicked a ball before? Go easy on them, girls…

It turns out that that the boot was on the other foot, so to speak. These Vietnamese girls were part of an elite programme where they have a fulltime football education, and they were scarily good.

By the end of the warm-up I don’t think I was the only one who had given up hope of keeping the scoreline respectable, but we were wrong. Our girls held their own magnificently. The school coach got his tactics spot-on, and they led at half-time in the first two matches, ending up winning one and losing the other. The matches were cracking, and played in a sporting yet full-blooded spirit. I didn’t really take any pictures of the actual games, owing to my customary over-involvement as a spectator, but got some that capture how organised and well-presented the Vietnamese teams were.

The school coach talks tictacs.

Half-time drinks,

and then shake hands after beating an elite team

The school captain picks up the trophy for second place.

So what is one to make of the elite teams? It is surely a slightly strange existence, to be plucked out at an early age to play so much football, but they are good-to-very good footballers and comported themselves in an exemplary fashion. What is more puzzling, in the light of the existence of these teams, is why there are so few girls in Hanoi that play football. What this city needs is a girls’ league.