Photo by Liliana Michelena
As the lights turn red, Cindy Novoa launches herself, ball in tow, into one of the busiest intersections in Lima. She brings the ball around the world, then rests it on her forehead, in a sped-up imitation of the legendary Maradona clip. She finishes just as the crosswalk counter hits zero, and as she runs back to the sidewalk the 24-year-old midfielder yells, “I’m dead, I swear!” Novoa has just left a grueling workout at the National Training Center, two blocks away, and she’s tired.
Five years ago, this street performance was Novoa’s main source of income, the way she earned bus fare to and from practice. Now, a driver reaches out with a coin as the lights turn green, but she politely declines the tip.
“Thanks,” she says, “but this is only for a photo.”
Novoa is now a member of Peru’s national team and captain of Universitario, the country’s national champion. She is finally getting paid to play, and so are her teammates. The wages are meager — averaging $175 per month — and the paychecks only started arriving in the last 18 months. Still, she and her teammates are being paid. A small number of them have also picked up modest but groundbreaking shoe deals with companies like Nike and Adidas. Beginning last August with the Pan American Games, held in the Peruvian capital, their biggest games are being broadcast on TV from the same stadiums where the men play.
“We just got tired of waiting, of playing without a public,” says Novoa, who has become the face of the Peruvian women’s teams’ struggle for visibility. “Some people didn’t even know we had a national team.”
Read more at The Athletic.