Linda Caicedo

By Avideep Nandi Majumdar

Linda Caicedo has become a household name for the footballing fraternity, those who are rigorously following womens football. However, her story is inspirational. She had enrolled in Real Juanchito Fc, which was a boys only youth football club. At the tender age of 14, she joined Amèrica de Cali-making her first professional debut. At the age of 15, the most horrific part of her life- she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in early 2020. She had to go through chemotherapy, and a lot of surgery. Even she had questioned her abilities to play football. However, by grit and determination. In last 18 months, she has featured in South Americas Under 17, championship, world cup and U20 WC, and was named player of the tournament at 17 years old, guiding her team to final. She was also snapped up by spanish giants Real Madrid and in just 10 matches scored 2 goals and 4 assists. In the World Cup, she scored against South Korea and was awarded player of the match. However on training she suffered a collapse and the Colombian FA downplayed the incident by saying she suffered from pressure from completing for the first team in world cup. In the second match against Germany, she scored a brilliant individual solo goal in the 52nd minute in her teams 2-1 win. Her teams next match is against Morocco. It remains to be seen whether she can score against them and take her team to the finals.