Tere Saurí, Levante pioneer and first captain who helped shape Spanish women’s football | OneFootball

Tere Saurí was a Levante pioneer who helped lay the foundations of Spanish women’s football, her generation later acknowledged during Spain’s World Cup win.

According to Superdeporte, she shunned dolls, kicked any ball she could find, and joined San Vicente Valencia, later absorbed by Levante, in a squad that ignored sceptics and fought on.

She balanced teaching with football, many team-mates hid absences to play and none were paid, some even lost jobs and contributions, yet they would still do it again.

A hostile trip to Oviedo ended with the league, the first for a Valencian team, celebrated at the Plaza del Ayuntamiento at dawn.

Backed by coach Antonio Descalzo in the late 1990s, Levante swept 2000-01, 26 wins, 240 scored, five conceded, including a 27-0 against Terrasa.

They claimed the Liga, Supercopa and Copa de la Reina, with Saurí, a defender, lifting them as Levante’s first captain. She only grasped her pioneer status after retiring.

The first Women’s Champions League, then the Copa Femenina, took Levante to Frankfurt, where a professional set-up and full stands sharpened her wish to see the same in Spain.

After leaving Levante in 2004 aged 31, she joined second-tier Colegio Alemán, won promotion in 2006-07, then retired at 38 as a starter and captain, signing off with a final goal in a Valencia CF training-ground tournament.

When Spain became world champions, Ivana Andrés video-called the pioneers to say the success was theirs, a tribute Saurí treasures.

Source: Superdeporte