*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 20 April 2023
Irene González Basanta (26 March 1909 – 8 April 1928) was a Spanish professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper for Irene Fútbol Club, which she founded. She is credited as the first woman in Spain to play football professionally,[2][3] and among the first anywhere.[4]
Early life
González was born near Campo de la Leña near the Monte Alto neighborhood of A Coruña, Galicia, Spain, and raised in the Orillamar neighborhood.[5] As a child, she would join football matches played by boys in the streets[1] or the fields of A Estrada. Her father was a police officer who did not approve of her youthful inclination toward football,[5] and by some accounts would drag her screaming away from a match.[1][4] By 1924, her parents, brother, and nephew had died, orphaning her to the care of her older sister, Delfina, and her brother-in-law, Delfina's husband.[2]
Club career
Local men's clubs
At the age of 15, González played as a centre-forward for local men's club Barcelona FC, unaffiliated with the Catalan club,[2][4] as well as with local club Racing Coruñés.[2] She later switched to goalkeeper and competed for minutes with Rodrigo García Vizoso, who would later join professional clubs Deportivo de La Coruña and Real Madrid.[2][4] Vizoso recalled in 2008 that González would also attend his matches and cheer for him from behind his goal.[1]
González faced regular misogynistic criticism, including slurs.[1]
Irene Fútbol Club, 1925–1927
González dressed like Ricardo Zamora in 1925. A print of this photograph was posted in a shop window on A Coruña's Calle Real.[2]
González launched Irene Fútbol Club in January 1925, at the age of 16, and served as the team's captain and promoter.[2] The club's players were all male except for herself.[4] The club toured Galicia and charged money to play matches, including friendly matches against third-division teams from Vilaboa, A Laracha, Carballo, and Betanzos,[6] and exhibitions played before Deportivo de La Coruña matches in the Parque de Riazor.[2]
The magazine Galicia covered the club in February 1925 with an anonymous commentary endorsing exercise among women, which was the subject of criticism and fears of the masculinization of women.[2] González was photographed in 1925 leaning against a goalpost dressed similarly to her goalkeeping inspiration, Ricardo Zamora, in a white turtleneck sweater and black knee-length shorts, a football under her foot. The photograph was posted in a shop on Calle Real in A Coruña, a report of which published in the newspaper El Orzán drew notoriety to González and her club.[2][6]
González organized an 18-team tournament from June to September 1925.[4][6]
By 1926, Irene FC matches — marketed as children's events — drew enough attention that Racing de Ferrol charged for tickets for a match on 24 May 1926 between Irene FC and the club's reserves at Campo de Futbol O Inferniño. Irene FC lost 7–1 but were celebrated by the crowd and Racing's board, and the match was covered by the periodical El Pueblo Gallego.[2][6]
González's last played match on record was on 1 May 1927.[2]
Playing style
Accounts of González's goalkeeping complimented her height, agility, and positioning, and noted her fearlessness in making diving saves and departures from the goal.[1][4] She was reportedly vocal, even vulgar, in commanding her defensive line,[1] and kept a doll of a footballer in her net as a ward against goals as her idol Zamora had also done.[1][5]
Illness and death
By the middle of 1927 González had fallen ill with tuberculosis, which had killed thousands in Galicia during an epidemic between 1924 and 1927.[2] Locals and Galician newspapers staged fundraisers and a charity friendly match to support her family.[2][4] She sold clothes and belongings to pay for treatment, though some of the charity helped her recover them and improve her living conditions.[1][4] Clubs in Racing, Ferrol, and Betanzos also held collections to assist her.[4][6] She was first reported dead on 9 April 1928, and confirmed by the newspaper El Eco de Santiago on 11 April 1928.[2]
Legacy
Irene era la capitana en un mundo de hombres, y en una época en la que el fútbol no era profesional y apenas había desarrollo técnico y táctico, demostró que, en igualdad de condiciones, había fútbol mixto.
Irene was the captain in a world of men, and at a time when football was not professional and there was hardly any technical and tactical development, she showed that, under equal conditions, there could be mixed (gender) football. — Esther Sullastres, goalkeeper for Sevilla FC and Spain[5]
González inspired a chant among girls in A Coruña that survived several years after her death, in which the singer tells her mother that she wants to become wealthy playing fútbol like González:[1][2][4]
Mamá, futbolista quiero ser
para jugar como Irene que juega muy bien
Mamá, cuando sea mayor
ganaré mucho dinero jugando al fútbol
Mamá, a footballer is what I want to be,
to play like Irene, who plays so well.
Mamá, when I am older,
I will make lots of money playing football.
— Galician children's chant
In 2022, the A Coruña city council approved a motion to rename a street in González's honor.[5]
In 2023, La Coruña hosted the inaugural Copa Internacional Irene González Basanta, an international girls' club football tournament named in her honor.[7] On 10 April 2023, the girls' academy of Real Madrid defeated their Sporting Braga counterparts 2–0 to win the first cup.[3]
