They came, they saw and they … lost heavily. Five-nil, 8-0 and 3-0 in fact. But on this occasion it did not matter, or not much. The key bit was the “came” as the Dominican Republic women’s team became the first senior side to represent the country at a major tournament.
They beat Guyana 1-0 to qualify for the Concacaf W Gold Cup and, despite the USA, Mexico and Argentina proving too strong at the tournament, the captain, Lucía León, was proud of the players. “We were tired,” she tells Moving the Goalposts. “Four games in 10 days and some players arrived having not played competitive games for a couple of months because of their club schedules or not having a club so training by themselves. So I think putting all that into consideration, we did a good job.”
The team’s highest-scoring active player, Alyssa Oviedo, added: “We were definitely proud of everything we accomplished, and earning a spot in the first Gold Cup as one of the top eight teams in the confederation is forever engraved in the history books of Dominican women’s football.
“However, we also recognised that there was work to be done in order to reach the level of the countries we competed against: as individuals, as a team, and as a federation. But this was an amazing first step.”
The future looks bright with players such as Renata Mercedes, 16, Jaylen Vallecillo, 17 and three 19-year-olds – Paloma Peña, Jazmin Jackson and Stella Tapia – all featuring in the starting XI during the tournament. But in many ways the hard work starts now.
The next important step is to create a women’s professional league in the country, as the president of the Dominican Football Federation, Rubén García, acknowledges: “We have to carry on the work we have been doing in recent years and creating a professional league will lead to a jump in quality as well as the country hosting the Under-17s Women’s World Cup [this year].
“The plan is to [create the professional league] with six teams this year, but we are in the process of elections for the federation so that may change,” García continues. The elections are set to take place on 7 April and will determine the next board of directors, including the president.
León says: “In women’s football, being completely honest, it depends who’s in charge. If the person who’s in charge wants to support us, they will, and if they don’t, they won’t. So whoever comes into the federation needs to understand what we’ve been doing so far and help. So I am a little bit worried if someone new comes in, whether they will care about women’s football or not.”
Regardless of who wins the election the country will host its first Fifa tournament in the Under-17 World Cup. The Caribbean nation, with its pristine beaches, is no stranger to tourists, welcoming 10million a year, but it will give the country a boost nevertheless. “It is a Fifa tournament so it will require the highest standards in the world of sport,” says García. “That’s the tangible benefits, the intangible benefits are that the Dominican Republic will be heard about all over the world and the event will be seen by 150 countries. It will leave an immense legacy.”
Also on the horizon is a brand new Concacaf home, based in Cap Cana, a facility that will include a number of high-quality international standard pitches, changing rooms, classrooms and a gym, with scope for further expansion in the future.
“This will be great for our national team and will hopefully give us the ability to have camps and friendlies more frequently since we would be able to host other countries and not have to pay for hotels or travel to other places like Delaware or Panama to have camps,” says Oviedo.
Football, however, still has to compete for attention with more popular sports such as baseball, volleyball and basketball. There are moves to increase participation and the national team are hoping to qualify for the 2027 Women’s World Cup. For now, though, the players are still coming to terms with their experience at the Concacaf W Gold Cup. For many of the younger players it was a first opportunity to play against stars such as Alex Morgan.
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Oviedo, who is hoping to turn professional after attending a Division I US College, said: “It was a pretty full circle moment to share a pitch with players who I grew up watching and still continue to watch now. It was great to compete with players who play at the level I hope to play at one day soon and see first-hand the quality of them and the level I can strive to reach further in my professional career.”
“I think the future is very bright,” León adds. “The most important thing in growing the team is to keep the base of it; build on our foundations, our philosophy and then everything will be clear for whoever joins. The way we play, the way we act on and off the pitch, the way we train and what we believe – this has been created now and we just need to tweak it to compete with the big dogs.”
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