Afra Abubacker
Kerala: Football rolls over Hadiya’s arms over to her neck and then down to the other arm. On and on it would circle. And last month, the Malappuram girl rolled her ball to the FIFA ground in Qatar.
Hadiya Hakeem went to the FIFA Influencer Cup as the only woman in team Asia and returned home as the runner up. Amongst 29 influencers who are also football content creators, the 20 year old stands out for her age and identity. “Back when I was in school, there was no girl’s football team,” Hadiya says.
With no girls to play along with, Hadiya started to balance and juggle football. She bonded well with her ball. And two year’s back, at a school sports meet, she performed her first public freestyle event. With her hijab pinned, she had sprinted and kicked football, storming the sand around her.
Though she began her freestyling from an annual school sports day, that featured only boys football tournaments, with the video going viral, she was cheered to freestyle in almost every tournament happening around.“When I came back home from Qatar, my hometown welcomed me in full-swing.”
This is Hadiya’s second home coming from Qatar. Hadiya had moved to Kerala after she completed her 10th from Qatar. “I picked up football from my school days there. My brothers also play well.” Hadiya says when she came to Kerala, it was playing with her brothers that kept her on track.
Hadiya soon became a social media celebrity. And her reels of freestyling are both entertaining and motivating. With the following she has and the consistent football content she posts in social media, Hadiya indeed was eligible for FIFA Influencer Cup. Hadiya is an undergraduate student of MES, Mampad college and she juggles both football and her studies quite well.
Freestyling football is a fusion of both dance and sport. With all the artful coordination of arms and legs, it is one's own expression with football like dance. Hadiya eyes the football intensely. Focus is the game. “When I started, I used to get distracted by the crowds. And balancing is hard. It's only with consistent training that I catch football tricks.”
Though women's sports are catching up, women’s neighbourhood tournaments are yet to kickstart. “It was hopeful when many girls contacted me for learning freestyle in lockdown,” Hadiya Hakeem concludes.
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