Offsides in a Soccer Country

Abstract

In this research, we aimed to investigate the collective imaginary of female soccer athletes regarding their professional soccer careers from the perspective of concrete psychoanalytic psychology. It is organized as qualitative research with the use of the psychoanalytic method, involving female players who participated in a collective psychological interview, mediated by the Thematic Drawing-and-Story Procedure. Results are presented as three affective-emotional fields of meaning: “Living is struggling”, “Soccer saved me” and “Soccer is a man’s thing”, indicating that these female athletes imagine soccer as a way of overcoming poverty and inequality through personal effort, according to their meritocratic beliefs. On the other hand, they feel affected by sexist views that do not conceive of femininity and soccer as compatible, which effectively hinders their professional lives.