Women's football in the Andes, Cusco, Peru.

Women's football in the Andes, Cusco, Peru. Brave women who play at 4,000 meters high, even if you don't believe it.

In modern times, football is a universal sport, practiced in every corner of our planet. Although initially, he was a favorite of men, he was gradually adopted by women. Today there is the FIFA Women's World Cup, the most important international national women's soccer tournament in the world. There are also youth competitions such as the U-20 Women's Soccer World Cup and the U-17 Women's Soccer World Cup, both organized by FIFA.

The women's soccer team of Peru is not far behind, already participated in the Copa América to reach a quota for the World Cup. In the month of April of the year 2018, the Copa América Femenina 2018 Chile was held. Champion Brazil and runner-up Chile qualified directly for France 2019. Argentina finished third and won its World Cup ticket after beating Panama, fourth of CONCACAF.

In the Andes, one hundred kilometers from Cuzco, in Churubamba, they have been celebrating harvests, births and parties with football matches for years. Women play as true professionals, without boots or trainer, and win titles. Churubamba is a place far away at 4,000 meters above sea level, where the peaks of the Andes mountain range surround a very green plain. The landscape of the village looks like the natural imitation of a great football stadium. In this place there are only 60 mud houses with thatched roofs and a school.

Benedicta Mamani picks up a ball from his kitchen and although he limps, because he was injured the day before during the grazing activity. She uses plantain, an analgesic plant that grows in her cabin garden, because she doesn't want to miss the training match. Mamani is front and captain of the soccer team of his village. He is 40 years old. Today you saw a suit made by herself, as do the other women of Churubamba, a town whose women's soccer team has won the Olympics in the province of Andahuaylillas five times.

Benedicta wears four sets of colored skirts, a white blouse, an alpaca wool jacket and a flat or flat, square, wide-brimmed hat, embroidered with colored threads and dotted with sequins. The players do not wear slippers because their feet are so thick that they can only wear flip flops (traditional Andean footwear). This is the official dress to play soccer, the clothes they wear every day. Women meet to discuss community issues and play a football game.

The story begins in 1982, the year of the World Cup in Spain. The inhabitants of Churubamba listened to the news through their radios; some came down from the mountain to spy on TV games in neighboring cities. After the championship, in the town square they placed wooden arches, supported by the priests of the Andahuaylillas church, who saw in football a means to reduce some village problems, such as alcoholism. In 1999, the Catholic Church in the area organized a sports championship where all the peasant villages and neighborhoods of Andahuaylillas should participate. The prize for the winners: breads with cheese and some oranges; for the losers, the same. It seems nothing, for them it is a lot.

The Franco-German television network ARTE T.V. He presented a film report on the Andean women soccer players of Churubamba, Cuzco, Peru, directed by Carmen Butta, from Italy and the translation of Quechua by Dr. Alfredo Alberdi. Soccer practiced by Quechua women shows the beauty of the sport, the color of nature and its inhabitants; also the joy, friendship and the possibility of clearing the penalties for the extreme poverty of their lands and their overwhelming family burdens.

Peruvian photographer Daniel Silva Yoshisato, of Agence France Press, who won the 2005 World Press Photo contest, also captures Churubamba's love for women's football.

Women's football can also be watched in other corners of Peru. The images of the championship in the fair of Hualahoyo, district of El Tambo in Huancayo, Junín region bring to mind the soccer players of Churubamba, Cusco.