Women’s World Cup 2023: ‘I looked at him and said: “You’re crazy!”‘ – Leicy Santos on her family’s remarkable sacrifice

In the latest episode of World at their Feet, a Warner Bros. Discovery series coinciding with the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, we hear from Atletico Madrid and Colombia midfielder Leicy Santos about how her father selling pigs for extra cash ultimately led to her representing her country with the number 10 shirt on her back.

Santos, 27, was born in a small village called San Sebastian in Cordoba, Colombia but was told from a very young age that if she wanted to make it professionally as a footballer, she’d have to be based in the capital, Bogota.

In the episode, Santos and her family share the hardships that came with chasing her dreams to become a footballer and how she worked to become one of the country’s most beloved players.

According to Santos, her early life was quiet in San Sebastian, the fishing village made up of dirt roads. She was constantly playing football in the streets with boys her age despite her mother’s insistence to dress her up in nice clothes and braid her hair.

“I would come back all sweaty and dusty, and then she had to bathe and dress me again,” Santos recalls.

“She gave up [eventually] and let me do whatever I wanted to do.”

When she was just 12, she was noticed by a friend, who told her father that she had to try out in Bogota for football trials.

“We didn’t want to, but we sent her anyway,” says Santos’ father.

“I sold some of the pigs I had because I didn’t have any cash at the time.”

After an 18-hour bus ride to Colombia’s capital, Santos spent two weeks training but quickly realised she didn’t want the experience to be a short-lived trip.

“I spent three days initially on trial, and the coach Pedro Rodriguez told me these words: ‘If you want to make it in football, you have to be in Bogota training every day.’

“I said: ‘I’ll do it!’ I really wanted to be a professional footballer.”

Her entire family decided to uplift their life and settle in Bogota to allow Santos to pursue her dreams. At the time there was no professional league for women, no investment, and no guarantee that it would work out.

“People treated us as if we were crazy,” Santos’ mother says.

Bogota was a whole other world compared to San Sebastian, a village the family had never left before. Santos’ father went from selling fish to becoming a construction worker with very basic pay.

“I remember one time, my dad came home from work and found my brother and me at dinner having just plain rice and coffee. It hit him very hard,” says Santos who explains that her father suffered from seeing his kids not even being able to have a decent meal.

Eventually, Santos was called up to the under-17 national team aged 15. When she received the news, her coach Pedro told her that she would become Colombia’s number 10 in the future, and that she’d be the best footballer in the country.

“I looked at him and said: ‘You’re crazy!'” she laughs.

By 2016, Santos became a regular starter for the national team, representing Colombia at the Rio Olympics.

At club level, she joined Colombian side Santa Fe, before becoming the first Colombian woman to be bought by a European team when Atletico Madrid signed her in 2019. There she achieved many firsts, including becoming the first Colombian woman to score in the Champions League.

“A benchmark for Colombia,” is how her father describes her football achievements.

As for the World Cup, Santos is dreaming big, just as she has been since she was a little girl. She believes that her country can cause a fight against the heavy hitters, and she’ll be doing it with the number 10 proudly donned and thoroughly earned on the back of her shirt.

“The hope that I have for the Colombia national team is that we get on the podium at the World Cup,” she says with the confidence of someone who knows how much she fought to play football.