Tamale

Control of the ball is everything. When Rafia A-Rahaman dribbles against an opponent, it is easy to see that is exactly her strong suit: control of the ball.

Coach Aziz Hamond, once himself a successful footballer with the RTU Tamale, watches tensely as opponent Lalia Aoud almost manages to stop Rafia, but ultimately she prances past her, ball at her feet – and their roles are switched. It is Monday afternoon on a dusty red hard court in a hidden district of Tamale and – like every day – Team Vodafone Ladies is at practice.

Rafia began playing football at the age of ten. She is now 17 and very ambitious. Her dream is to one day be called to the national team. Her parents, she tells me, weren’t very happy when their daughter discovered football, but things have changed. “Now, my mother shoos me out the door when she thinks I’m going to arrive too late to training!” Yet, she first had to prove that her schoolwork would not suffer for it. She still has almost two years ahead of her at the senior second high school and, with mathematics her favourite subject and an almost insatiable hunger for books, she is so convincingly good at school that even her parents no longer think the extremely time-consuming training is a problem.

The weekly schedule is immovable from Monday until Friday: centring, heading, and tackling – from three until five, sometimes even until six. A number of male onlookers at the fence observe practice today with genuine appreciation: “They can really play!” The two dozen little boys in particular, who proudly tell me that they play soccer, too, think that they can learn from the women: “They play great!” Not yet great enough fears Rafia, stops the ball, passes it over to Lalia, elegantly picks up the next centre in the air and plays the ball back. “Football keeps me agile and fit,” she says.

The footballer’s idol is no lesser than Messi: “As a football player, he is really almost perfect.” That is where she wants to be: to be able to play as many positions as possible, for example, although she gladly acknowledges with a broad smile that her greatest strength is defense. Last week, she was able to take part in a selection tournament in Accra, which could have been an important step toward the national team. She did not do well enough this time, but she follows up determinedly, “I’ll keep at it!” Nonetheless, the 17-year-old emphasizes, it’s the playing itself that lures her, working with the ball, pleasure in a good kick, playing with a reliable team. Is there ever anything difficult or unpopular about training? No, nothing: “I love everything about playing football!” Naturally, she also loves watching football – her favourite teams are Chelsea and Real Madrid.

Right-footed Rafia owes her first encounter with the round leather ball to her brother. She was the only one of four sisters who from the very start could do just about as much with the ball as the boys on the football pitch. In the beginning she also played on boys’ teams, (“they always accepted me completely!”) and later joined the Team Telecom Ladies, today called the Team Vodafone Ladies. Life as a professional football player? It is still unthinkable in Ghana, she shrugs, but to play for a while in Germany: Why not? Rafia has a lot of respect for the German women football players – after all, they are the incumbent world champions.

Enthusiasm for football is written all over the wiry player’s heated face, yet she does not lose the world around her from sight. Life as a football player with a husband and children, for instance, does not sound odd to her at all. “I’d like to have football and a family – playing football certainly doesn’t make me a man!” The young defense player thinks about life someday after football, as well, and she therefore is working for quite serious career prospects. She could imagine working as a journalist. Not a bad idea, you often need dribbling and tackling skills for that, too. She says and toddles back to the pitch, centres the ball at a run right to Lalia, who shoots a goal, ice cold. Great teamwork, training is over.