: Claudina Vidal Claudina Vidal may be the most important women’s soccer player that no cone has heard of. She ranks near the top of the list of forgotten players of the twentieth century. For a few brief months in 1971 Claudina caused {major uproar in the soccer world when she was signed to play with a men | club. although she never saw action in an official game, her presence in = practice, in exhibition matches, and on the bench split opinions in Uruguay £ and around the world ‘Women's soccer in Uruguay experienced a minor flowering in the early 1970s with the development of the Amateur Association of Women’s Foot- ball (AAFF).The league formed in 1971 and had disbanded by 1976, but over the course ofits six year existence eighteen teams played at one point or = another. in Paysandii, a small city to the northwest of Montevideo, women's 5 soccer began to catch on as well. By 1971 six women’s teams from in and 5 around the city organized a league, and on one—Club Midland—played a + young woman named Claudina Vidal. Vidal, according to those who saw her play, was highly skilled. The lead- ing scorer on her team, she was far superior tothe other women with whom she played. She was also well known around a local men’s team— the Institucién Atlética Sud Americana Paysandu (IASA) (not to be confused «with the Montevideo team of the same name)—because her cousin was = the coach, She often attended club events and regularly went to the teams matches. As the story goes, one day Claudina stopped by the training she wanted to. he accepted his offer, and within afew practices had con- vvinced the coach that she could hold her own with the men on the club. Complications arose as word got out that a woman was playing ona men's team. The league at first refused permission to sign her but event + ally relented because league rules did not specify that players had to be + men. Then the local press began to boycott team matches and refused to + print the rosters and scores for IASA Paysandis games. The newspaper did not believe that a woman co thought thatthe signing was = creased while international media covered the event. In late 1971 the Broadcasting Corporation aired a twelve-minute segment on Vidal; newspa- Claudine Vidal, who in 1971 signed with IASA Poysandé, though she played in ‘ond Brazil, due fo protest ub. to Brail and Argentina, playing exhibition matches with Vidal n front of -ked stadiums. Paci end, however, laudina Vial never played an oficial match with Pac pres cpr a rare tes od = CE muchas reraredon eben Nore i present performance in exibtions showed, she was marethan capable > a ide men, As women’s soccer in Uruguay disappeared be-