Copa 71
A celebration of the deep roots of women’s soccer
What if there was a Women’s World Cup – 20 full years before FIFA held the event for the first time? What if the games were played in a massive stadium filled with cheering fans and attracted global media attention? And what if it was wiped entirely off the map, relegated to the dustbin of history? Copa 71 is a story of triumph and a thousand little injustices faced by female athletes around the world, who were punished simply for posing a threat to the male power structures in professional sports. In a cultural landscape where men are still finding ways to sour the athletic accomplishments of women (see, for example, the case of Spanish Football Association president Luis Rubiales, whose nonconsenual kissing of Spanish player Jenni Hermoso has cast a pall over their team’s victory at the Women’s World Cup), the lessons of Copa 71 still resonate today.
Until the late 1960s, organized women’s soccer wasn’t really a thing – girls were shunted into other, more conventionally feminine sports instead. Organized by the Federation of Independent European Female Football, the 1971 Women’s World Cup was the first of its kind – and its phenomenon status happened almost by accident. When FIFA disavowed the competition, claiming branding rights over the concept of a “world cup,” they banned the organizers from using any of the FIFA-sanctioned stadiums in the host country of Mexico. But their move backfired tremendously, forcing the event into the only two stadiums outside FIFA’s control, which just so happened to be the biggest that the country had to offer. To sell out the massive stadiums, they launched a widespread marketing campaign that turned the Women’s World Cup into the event of the year. For the first time in their lives, women who played soccer were celebrated instead of treated as outcasts.
One of Copa 71’s greatest strengths is that it puts together an amazing assemblage of women, from the athletes who participated in the 1971 World Cup to some of the most popular stars of modern soccer. It’s heartbreaking and inspiring to hear the older women talk about their experiences with football, both the ridicule they received and the joy at the creation of the World Cup teams. Finally, they were given proof that there were women all around the world like them, that they weren’t strange or unfeminine for their love of soccer, and that there were tens of thousands of people who would buy tickets to watch them play. There’s camaraderie among the women, but also a strong competitive spirit, as you can tell from the way that they describe each other as athletes – they’re full of respect for one another but clearly remember every dirty tackle and word of trash talk as though it was yesterday. And yet despite the fact that they were all on different teams, it’s remarkable how much the World Cup inculcating a spirit of community among the players.
Although Copa 71 is composed of archival footage and talking head interviews, it’s intensely cinematic. Now that the documentary has come out, telling the extraordinary tale of these women who broke into a sport that they had previously been denied access to, it’s hard to imagine that someone won’t end up turning it into a narrative film – it feels very much in the vein of A League of Their Own. But it’s a credit to the pacing and editing choices of the filmmakers of Copa 71 that such a film wouldn’t really be necessary: This one does a perfectly good job of bringing the extraordinary story to life without needing to fictionalize it. As it stands, Copa 71 is equal parts infuriating and aspirational, reminding viewers of the surprisingly deep roots that women’s soccer has, but also how far it still has to come.