At the helm of the Abasolo Delfines, Ana Zavala is ninety minutes away from being promoted to the Premier League as technical director
The last coach he faced Ana ZavalaHe hugged her and commented: “It’s good that you’re here, you show that soccer has no gender.” He told her after the tribune tried to intimidate the first woman to be a technical director in a professional team of men in Mexico, the Abasolo dolphins, So what is ninety minutes away from being promoted to the Premier League.
“I understand the anger that causes a woman to beat her team, more because of culture, because it is something that is not common, but after the game you go on with your life, nothing happens. My players got angry, in Volcanes de Colima they yelled butch at me, they said things to my mother, the players got upset and I told them that was going to happen, that we had to concentrate on the games and not on the hostile environment, “said Ana Zavala, coach of the Abasolo Dolphins, told ESPN Digital.
Ana Zavala, on her own team and on her first day as technical director of a men’s team, was told that she could not be in a men’s locker room, now everyone defends the coach who has Abasolo’s Delfines in the semifinals, with a 1-0 lead in the first leg and close to promotion.
“They are already used to seeing a woman in the dressing room. They no longer chivean, there is respect from me and from them, we already see it normal. At the beginning it was difficult, due to the context that I was a woman and it was a men’s team, but the team responded in a good way to this and now we are in the semifinals ”, he says Ana Zavala, who in case of going to the final will get promotion to the Premier League.
The Delfines de Abasolo coach left her dream of being a professional footballer with León and opted for something that seemed like a chimera. She studied to be the coach of a professional team and the team that plays 100 kilometers from the capital of Guanajuato, opened the doors for her to become the first woman to lead a men’s team.
“I didn’t think we women had to prove something, but once inside, you realize that you can open the door to more girls who dream of being coaches. This shows that women can not only lead in the female category, but also in the male category ”.