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Deena Rahman’s lifelong love of soccer has taken her from England to Egypt, Bahrain to Tanzania and even additional afield. In 2017, she travelled to Mt. Kilimanjaro with 32 girls from 20 international locations — with ages starting from 15 to 55 and ability starting from professional to novice — to climb the mountain and set the Guinness World Document for the very best recreation of soccer ever performed. They competed on a volcanic ash pitch at practically 18,760 toes. In 2018, she was invited to Jordan by Prince Ali to compete in a recreation of soccer on the lowest level on the earth, the Lifeless Sea, at 1,412 ft under sea degree.
These are two of the 5 world data she holds. Most lately, in Dec. 2020, she set the document for many penalties taken in 24 hours. Her different two data come from taking part within the greatest five-a-side recreation — which noticed over 800 gamers take part over 5 days, together with a seven-hour in a single day stint from Rahman’s group, the Legendary Eggs — and enjoying in an 11-a-side recreation with probably the most variety of nationalities enjoying.
At first look, Rahman’s life appears to be that of an enthusiastic overachiever. She was one of many first girls to be paid to play soccer in Europe, with Fulham in 2000, and has performed for 2 nationwide groups (England and Bahrain). The 37-year-old, who nonetheless performs soccer with the Bahrain nationwide aspect, now runs her personal academy along with her husband Paul after spending earlier components of her profession working golf equipment on their academy improvement. When she arrived in Bahrain in 2010, the place she lives now, she arrange a girls’s league and attracted groups from neighbouring international locations. Final yr, she determined to do the London to Brighton ultramarathon.
Few would provide themselves as much as kick a ball repetitively right into a internet over 24 hours, however Rahman’s motivations for taking up these data are twofold. On a private degree, she likes to push herself. A self-confessed proprietor of “itchy toes,” she is all the time in search of her subsequent journey. Her different motivator, nevertheless, is probably the extra vital one. Rahman is on a mission, alongside these on the nonprofit organisation Equal Taking part in Discipline, to point out women and girls that there is not any problem they can not tackle.
“We have 5 world data, however every of them is extra in regards to the messages we are able to carry throughout by way of these data,” Rahman informed ESPN.
That message varies relying on the place Equal Taking part in Discipline are. When the group went to Jordan in 2018, they went into refugee camps and arrange soccer classes for about 300 ladies who “would by no means get the chance to play soccer,” Rahman stated.
“It’s extremely strict in a number of the areas there, particularly after they get to 9, 10 years of age. They’re at dwelling and so they do not play sport, so it was wonderful to see all these ladies utterly buzzing round. We had been enjoying in some actually distant locations the place we simply had cones and sand, and it was actually touching to see them having fun with themselves and doing train and enjoying soccer with us.”
Over the 24-hour interval of her penalty-taking document, Equal Taking part in Discipline broadcasted a sequence of talks based mostly round their core ideas of advancing gender equality, supporting present organisations that assist ladies in sport and amplifying the work taking place all over the world in pursuit of this objective. This contains all the pieces from working international camps to enhancing the standard of girls’s soccer, to offered help to domestically based mostly teams like golf equipment, academies, charities and non-governmental organisations inside their very own programmes.
For her personal half, Rahman had a group of 24 goalkeepers to assist her set the document, which included gamers from the Tekkers Academy she runs along with her husband, moms of her gamers and teammates from the Arabian Celts, her Gaelic soccer group in Bahrain.
Rewinding the clock to Rahman’s early enjoying days additionally helps to clarify her ardour for advancing the ladies’s recreation. Born in Fulham, England, she began enjoying when she was seven and initially, she was the one woman there. She skilled with the boys till they began a ladies’ group a short while later.
“I feel it helped me develop at a greater charge,” she stated of the expertise. “I needed to be robust, I needed to be robust. Fortunately I used to be good and I improved.”
When Rahman was 15, she went to England for trials and was chosen to play for his or her Underneath-18 aspect, the place she bought 18 caps and performed in two European Championships. She additionally continued to develop with Fulham and was one of many first girls in Europe to be paid for enjoying soccer when the group turned skilled in 2000.
“The membership had been magnificent. We skilled on the coaching floor with the lads, we bought all of the assist we wanted,” she stated.
“The setback was that it was too early, to be sincere. We weren’t within the prime division both, and cash clearly would not simply ship you into the highest division, both, so we had been within the equal of the third division. In order a lot because it was like a turning level in girls’s soccer, it was a bit bit ridiculed as a result of we had been the professional group within the third division who had been beating groups 25-0, and clearly that is not reasonable.”
Fulham remained professional for 3 years, however then transitioned to being semi-professional — money circulate grew to become a difficulty — earlier than retreating to novice after which the group being scrapped totally in 2006. Whereas the introduction of professional contracts was thrilling for the game, the transition additionally gave Rahman pause for thought.
“I feel numerous it got here right down to the truth that I used to be elevated into the England squad fairly early, and when Fulham went skilled, it was a large alternative and it was sensible, however we attracted numerous good robust older gamers,” she stated. “I simply struggled fairly a bit with self-confidence… so after I did my diploma in sports activities science, I might relate to numerous the psychology stuff.”
Together with her struggles persevering with, Rahman’s father finally introduced her to his dwelling nation of Egypt, the place she performed for a yr earlier than snapping her ACL, which pressured her to return to England for surgical procedure and rehab. Whereas there, she began doing a little teaching work with Arsenal when the chance got here to go to Bahrain.
This five-day journey modified the course of Rahman’s life. Whereas there, she secured a training job and shortly made the transfer along with her husband, Paul. Instantly, she got down to increase the profile of girls’s soccer within the nation.
“Clearly, it being within the Center East, there weren’t that many women enjoying soccer,” Rahman stated. “There was a nationwide group right here, however other than that, there wasn’t a lot happening. So considered one of my major, driving passions was that I used to be going to alter that and fortunately, I did.”
As an academy coach, she went from mentoring two ladies to over 100 within the first couple of years. She began the nation’s first girls’s league, which is now ruled by the Bahrain FA, and noticed groups journey from Saudi Arabia to compete given the shortage of alternatives at dwelling. At all times on the hunt for her subsequent problem, she and her husband arrange their very own academy, Tekkers, in 2015. Primarily based in eight places, they’ve 10 full-time workers and over 200 ladies enjoying alongside their boy’s programme.
“We’ve girls-only lessons, and they’re full up and utterly buzzing. A few them play in our squads, so they really play in our groups with the boys,” she defined. “I completely stand by it as I feel it actually helps your soccer. There’s simply that little bit of pace factor, a little bit of power that you could use, and in addition that confidence that you simply’re ok to do this.”
In addition to teaching these ladies by way of their enjoying careers, she additionally sees it as her duty to steer by instance, which is how she discovered herself taking up the world document for many transformed penalties in 24 hours. Initially, she had wished to tackle a document that will contain a group, however rules round stopping the unfold of coronavirus made this tougher. In the long run, they settled on the penalties as she might nonetheless embrace a lot of individuals, albeit in a protected, responsibly distanced manner.
The official document stood at 1,111, with one other, unofficial one at 2,075. Rahman set herself the goal of scoring 100 penalties an hour. She would kick for 50 minutes earlier than taking a 10-minute break after which restarting once more in the beginning of the following hour. This could have introduced her tally to roughly 2,400 penalties; nevertheless, inside 4 hours she’d crushed the official document. A pair extra hours, and she or he cruised previous the unofficial one. When she hit the second mark, her husband Paul politely prompt that she might cease and go dwelling to sleep, however Rahman had no want to.
“I simply felt I had this duty that I wasn’t going to cease as a result of I had all these people who I had put into my group,” she stated. “Even when it was in the midst of the night time, I had bought them to decide to popping out at 3 a.m. and being a goalkeeper. There was additionally the reside feed and all that. So there was little question in my thoughts that I used to be going to proceed.”
In the long run, she scored 7,876 penalties, breaking the document by an astounding 6,765.
“I did not observe penalties,” she stated. “Some individuals had been like are you not going to observe taking penalties and I used to be like: ‘No, it’s superb. They’re going to get weaker, in all probability, however I will simply go along with it.’
“I did get fatigued. My legs had been getting actually, actually heavy, and it was getting harder because it went on. My photographs had been getting weaker.”
Heading into the brand new yr, Rahman is decided this would possibly not be her final world document. When playfully requested if enjoying on the moon is perhaps subsequent, she paused earlier than breaking out into a large grin and responding: “That is truly a good suggestion.”
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