"We had lost everything: family, our childhood memories and that national team." Fatima Yousufi said that. She left Afghanistan with one backpack. The goal wasn't glory — it was survival.
Now she's a goalkeeper in a FIFA-recognised national squad, training in Auckland and preparing to play competitive football again. That sentence would have seemed impossible four years ago.
When the Taliban retook power in 2021, women's sport in Afghanistan didn't just get restricted — it was erased. The players went into hiding. Thirteen of them eventually made it to Australia, where they spent five years training, waiting, and refusing to dissolve. The Afghanistan football federation still doesn't officially recognise the women's team. FIFA, to its credit, stepped past that and granted the squad eligibility for international competition in April.
A squad rebuilt across continents
This isn't a team that trains together every week at a single club. Players are scattered across Australia, Europe, and the United States. Coach Pauline Hamill runs talent identification camps just to assemble a squad for fixtures. The logistics alone would break most programs.
Twenty-three members of the Afghan Women United program are currently in Auckland for a training camp, with matches against a Cook Islands side scheduled this week. Seven months ago they beat Libya in the "Unite" tournament — their first competitive win in years. Midfielder Mona Amini described hearing the national anthem that day as something she won't forget.
"After three years we heard our anthem. That was amazing for me."
The last official competitive match this squad played was in 2018. Six years of forced absence, and they came back and won.
What this actually means
There's no league title on the line here, no World Cup qualification at stake yet. But the significance of this team's existence goes well beyond football results. Amini put it plainly: the players see themselves as the voice of women and girls still inside Afghanistan, where the Taliban's restrictions on female education and movement have only tightened.
Yousufi frames the team's return in those same terms — that representing Afghanistan internationally is a form of argument. A demonstration that women belong in sport, in education, in public life.
- FIFA granted the Afghan women's team international eligibility in April 2025
- The squad last played an official competitive match in 2018
- 13 players initially settled in Australia after the 2021 Taliban takeover
- The team beat Libya in the "Unite" tournament seven months ago
- 23 players are currently in camp in Auckland, New Zealand
"The only thing humans want is freedom, and the Taliban took our freedom," Amini said. There isn't much to add to that.
