Tale of courage, disguise, beatings and false dawns has ended with players safely in England – but their journey is not done
“‘We were on the pitch training that day,” says the Afghanistan development team player Fatemah Baratean. “We’d been selected to play in the under-23 Central Asian FA women’s championship, in Tajikistan, then all of a sudden there were explosions and bomb blasts all around, 100 metres from us, smoke, people screaming, mothers running. We didn’t know what was going on.”
The coach told the team it would be their last session, that the Taliban had seized control and they should take one final selfie together there in Herat before everything changed.
