‘There were the usual words like ‘Go back in the kitchen’ but the saddest part was when their parents shouted: ‘Don’t get run over by a girl, don’t get dribbled past by a girl,’” Lena Oberdorf says as she remembers the reaction she faced most weekends. Oberdorf would be the only girl in the German league of youth football she played in, as the captain of her team TSG Sprockhövel, and the boys opposing her became increasingly desperate.
“They started to attack me hard from behind and I was: ‘OK, this is kind of dangerous now,’” Oberdorf says as she raises an eyebrow at the memory. Germany’s 21-year-old defensive midfielder will begin the World Cup as one of the most impressive female footballers in the world. Oberdorf won the best young player of the tournament at last year’s Euros and is ranked fifth in the Guardian’s top 100 female footballers in the world. But until joining Essen’s women’s team at 16, she played exclusively in boys’ football.
