Soccer in Colombia: Growing an ‘unimaginable’ domestic league from national-team momentum
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To start, we head to Colombia.
For as long as Leicy Santos can remember, she has had a ball at her feet.
Growing up in San Sebastián, a remote village in the northern province of Córdoba, she spent her days playing soccer with her brother and his friends. Her mother did not approve at first, but her father, a player himself, understood her passion.
This passion carried Santos to the capital city of Bogota at 12 years old to join the Club Besser football academy and later to the United States, where she played collegiately at Iowa Central. She competed for her country in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, before returning to Colombia to make history.
In 2017, she signed her first professional contract with Santa Fe, and promptly led the club to the championship in the inaugural season of the Colombian Women’s Football League.
“I never imagined fulfilling my dream in my own country,” Santos told The Athletic by video call last week. “I viewed that as completely unattainable. I envisioned fulfilling that dream in Europe or somewhere else, but certainly not back home. I told myself, ‘This is an opportunity to literally mark a turning point — a before and after — for women’s football in our country’.”
The history of women’s football in Colombia, much like Santos’ journey, is not linear.
The Colombian league’s inaugural season in 2017 was “a massive phenomenon,” as Santos described it. The final between Santa Fe and Atletico Huila drew 33,327 fans, a record in the country for women’s soccer attendance. It set the bar high early on for the sport in Colombia.
“There are still many things we need to improve upon in Colombia. It starts with our professional league,” Santos said. “We need to seek out a better overall development for the league, so that the players coming up through the ranks can eventually reach the same level that we are currently at. Most of us — the players currently on the national team — play abroad.”
Like Santos, Jorelyn Carabalí, who in 2023 became the first Colombian to play in the Women’s Super League in England when she signed for Brighton and Hove Albion, grew up playing with boys in her neighborhood — despite disapproval from her grandmother. She would sneak to the pitch with her uncle as a young girl. Slowly, her love for the sport grew. She discovered “microfútbol” in school, or futsal, small-sided soccer on a cement pitch. But yearned to play on a full-sized pitch.
“I can’t really say that I envisioned myself becoming a professional player,” she told The Athletic. “It was simply something that stirred deep within me.”
She later dreamed of playing at Sarmiento Lora, a football academy based in the city of Cali that she regularly saw commercials for on television. She remembers telling herself, “Someday, I have to go there.” Two years later, the moment came.
“That whole vision – that dream of women’s football, of becoming a professional player – really began to grow,” Carabalí said. “Being in Cali, everything was obviously much more visible.”
In Cali, there were more clubs, more competitions and more visibility to professional players. Through the academy, Carabalí signed her first pro contract with second-tier club Orsomarso. In 2018, she signed with Atlético Huila of the top division.
“There were people who truly believed that we could have a professional league — people who wanted to come watch us and stand by our side. Of course, alongside that, there was also a great deal of machismo,” Carabalí said.
“There were people who would make comments without fully understanding the situation or the process, saying things like, ‘Well, soccer isn’t for women’, and so on. Those things never really affected me personally. For me, what mattered most was what I held in my heart and in my mind: the dream of becoming the person I aspired to be.”
However, the Colombian league was still a work in progress, and top players such as Santos and Carabalí soon left for leagues in Europe or the United States in search of tougher challenges.
Santos first signed with Spanish club Atletico Madrid in Liga F in 2019, before joining National Women’s Soccer League side Washington Spirit in 2024. She is one of six Colombians currently in the NWSL, though not all players feature regularly for Colombia or have reached the senior level. Carabalí, who now plays for the league’s Boston Legacy, also spent time in Europe with those three seasons at Brighton.
Other Colombian players around the world include Linda Caicedo (Real Madrid), Mayra Ramírez (Chelsea) and Manuela Vanegas (Brighton). Colombia’s roster for the 2026 SheBelieves in February featured only two domestic players, with the rest playing for clubs across the United States, Brazil, France, Spain, Mexico and England.
“The clearest example isn’t just having a single player abroad but rather being able to say, ‘In this league, there are 10 Colombian players; in that league, there are five’,” said Carabalí. “We’ve seen it here. I even witnessed it myself while I was in England.”
The now 28-year-old signed with Brighton after a season with Atletico Mineiro in Brazil. Before that, she played five years in Colombia’s top division for Atletico Huila and then Deportivo Cali. In January, after careful deliberation, Carabalí agreed a two-year contract with a club option to join NWSL expansion team Boston.
“That speaks volumes about the talent possessed by Colombian female players, and about what we can achieve if we truly set our minds to it,” she said. “As we continue to grow and compete in top-tier leagues, we can take everything we learn and absorb from the development of those European leagues, as well as from the environment here in the United States, and bring it back to our national teams.”
The Colombian national team has been on a steady build over the last decade.
During the 2015 World Cup, Colombia shocked the world by upsetting France 2-0 in the group stage. It was Colombia’s first World Cup win, which helped fuel the creation of the inaugural professional women’s league back home two years later. Still, in public and private, players pushed for better conditions and spoke out against gender discrimination within Colombian football.
The women’s game in Colombia has a checkered past. There have been low points, with players overcoming systemic issues including corruption and misogyny to take their sport to new heights.
Colombia missed out on qualification for the 2019 World Cup, but came back in full force by the next edition three years ago.
That World Cup created the perfect storm. Their performance on the pitch was captivating. The roster was filled with rising stars who had experience playing together at youth level. Colombian fans were out in force at Australia’s stadiums.
“It’s the kind of feeling that makes your chest swell with pride; often, while singing the national anthem, you even feel the urge to cry,” Carabalí said, “because it’s not just about representing your country. It’s about realizing that your hard work has paid off — that every step of the journey you’ve taken has been worth it.”
In 2023, their 2-1 upset of two-time Women’s World Cup winners Germany in the group stage featured the goal of the tournament, when an 18-year-old Caicedo dribbled through the defense in the box and curled a shot into the top corner of the net. The team’s nail-biting quarterfinal against European champions England reset expectations once more, despite the 2-1 defeat.
Linda Caicedo – absolutely breathtaking ✨#COL lead Germany in Sydney!#FIFAWWCpic.twitter.com/J3dgDLPSl2
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) July 30, 2023
Back home, fans assumed Colombia’s women would simply start winning titles now. This proved a double-edged sword, with public pressure mounting as the team continued to take intentional steps forward.
“As athletes and footballers, we understand that everything — absolutely everything — is a process,” Santos said. “We know that success isn’t solely determined by the football itself or what happens on the pitch; rather, there are numerous other factors that must align to enable you to achieve those results and compete at a world-class level.”
The team started receiving repeated invites to tournaments including the SheBelieves Cup in the U.S. and scheduled regular fixtures against top opponents such as Japan and Canada.
Head coach Ángelo Marsiglia told reporters last year, following a 2-1 loss to Australia, that he would rather play games where they had high probabilities of being beaten because it meant guaranteed progress. The team pitted itself against some of the best opposition in the world, and it paid off. Last summer, Colombia nearly won its first Copa America title, falling to now nine-time winners Brazil in the final on penalty kicks after a 4-4 draw in which they were ahead three times.
To lose in that way, Santos said, remains one of the worst moments for the team. But it also carried important lessons.
“Speaking as someone who plays abroad, someone who sees how many other national teams are treated,” Santos said. “I know that we still lack the solid foundations needed to achieve our ultimate goal: lifting a title.”
Colombia, like the rest of South America, is on the verge of a watershed moment.
The first Women’s World Cup is coming to the continent in 2027. The tournament will be hosted by Brazil and has the potential to propel the growth of women’s football across the continent in an unprecedented way.
“It’s going to be incredible,” Santos said. “I have absolutely no doubt that we’re going to feel just like we’re at home. That’s going to give us a huge boost, because we had that same experience in Australia. We felt right at home whenever we played. We’d fill a good chunk of the stadium with a sea of yellow jerseys, and, as a Colombian, that kind of thing really lifts your spirits.”
Two moments stand out to Santos when you ask her about the highlights of her first decade as a professional soccer player.
She talks about lifting that trophy with Santa Fe, as a wide-eyed 21-year-old, before a record crowd. In not as many words, she mentions her goal against England in that quarterfinal — the only time she has scored on the World Cup stage.
“That goal really left its mark on me,” Santos said, “because, on that day, I realized just what we were capable of. That we could achieve and accomplish whatever we set our minds to. It doesn’t depend solely on any one individual; rather, it’s about achieving it together as a team.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Washington Spirit, Colombia, Boston Legacy FC, NWSL, Women's Soccer, FIFA Women's World Cup
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