An Interview With Laurina Oliveros, Argentina Women's National Team Goalkeeper

On June 25th, we got the opportunity to sit down with Laurina Olveros, Goalkeeper from the Argentina Women’s National Team.

Laurina was born in 1993 in Ramallo, Argentina. Growing up, she always loved the sport and from a young age, she knew she wanted to play soccer professionally. The professional scene in the Men’s game is much more established than the Women’s, as the Women’s only gained professional status in 2019.

She started in 2008/2009 with a local club called Ferro Carril Urquiza, which was then bought out by the Universidad Abierta Interamericana (UAI) and changed its name to Club Deportivo UAI Urquiza. UAI is the top women’s soccer program in Argentina, regularly beating other massive clubs like Boca Juniors, River Plate, Racing and San Lorenzo in league play as well as coming in 3rd place in the 2015 Copa Libertadores Femenina.

UAI Urquiza is known to be the top club because they take care of their athletes. It functions as a University as well so many of the players are studying in scholarships, they have their expenses paid for and have various different contract options depending on the quality. The Argentina Football Federation (AFA) provided each team with 8 professional contracts that they would pay for and the rest is up to the club to fund. UAI has various players that played in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup currently going on now.

Laurina explained the struggles that they’ve had to go through to fight for equality in the Women’s game, especially at the National Team Level. They would have games that they would lose 10-0, 11-0 then the week after would win 10-0 due to the disparity in quality and lack of resources at the club level. At the national level, during away games, sometimes they would not have hotel rooms and be forced to sleep on the bus. AFA would often give them Men’s sized clothing and often declined to pay their minimum wage that the players were hoping to get.

It has clearly been an uphill battle for them that has been worth it as they qualified for the playoff game to have a chance to play in the Fifa Women’s World Cup in France, 2019 after finishing in third in the Copa America. In the first, held at the Arsenal de Sarandi Stadium, Argentina played in front of a full stadium all supporting the girls on their quest to the World Cup. Argentina won the first leg at home 4-0 and tied the second 1-1 which mean we were through to the World Cup.

“It was tremendous,” Laurina stated. “To finally have the country behind you, to put all club ties, affiliations, and rivalries aside to support the national team like this is something that I’ve always wanted for the sport. A packed stadium, a dream come true!”

“We had the likes of Sergio Aguero, Lionel Messi and Nicolas Tagliafico sending us videos congratulating us and posting about our success on social media." she later added.

Laurina currently plays for UAI Urquiza with her contract ending soon. She currently also runs a training program for young Goalkeepers called Laurina Oliveros – Arco y Deporte (Goalkeeping and Sport) where she trains 15 young female goalkeepers in the sport she has known all her life.

“I love teaching, especially young girls. There are so many girls that just lack a little bit of guidance and this is the best part of the game for me.”

We are looking at having an international camp where we bring Laurina over to Canada to train our girls' teams and work with some of the local girls and share some of her experiences with our players in the Fall/Winter of the 2019/2020 season. Stay tuned to find out more about this. Thank you to Laurina for taking the time to meet with us in Buenos Aires!