From the time Estefanía Banini was five years old, her career has been intertwined with the ongoing fight for progress within women’s soccer in Argentina.
“When I started, I remember that they wouldn’t let me play soccer with boys,” Banini said on the “My New Favorite Futbolista” podcast, a collaborative production between NBC Sports, Telemundo and On Her Turf. “They had to give me special permission to do physical education with boys. And I was the only girl. Men played soccer and women, volleyball, and obviously I wanted to play soccer because it was the sport that I was passionate about.”
Banini and her parents petitioned at least six soccer teams for a spot on their roster. Eventually, she was given a chance to play – but even then, her parents sometimes had to sign a waiver to allow her to play in tournaments.
In the years that followed, Banini blazed a trail for female soccer players in Argentina and went on to become a forward for the Argentina women’s national team and Atlético Madrid. She has been called the “female Messi”, and, in 2021, she was voted by other professional soccer players as one of the best 11 players in the world.
Banini captained Argentina at the 2019 World Cup, where she helped Argentina win its first-ever World Cup point in a 0-0 draw with Japan, and was subsequently named the player of the match.
A month later, in July 2019, Banini was inexplicably left off the national team roster for the following Pan American Games. According to Banini, though, there was an explanation: She attributed it to her decision to speak up about a need for improved conditions for female players.
After the roster announcement, Banini took to social media to explain her frustration. “I want nothing more than to be on the national team. I’ve been training since I was 5. Fighting for equality without discrimination however I can! The coaches decided to leave me out of the team,” she posted on Instagram in Spanish on July 15, 2019.
Later in the post’s caption, Banini said, “They are not delivering at the caliber we need. We want real growth for female soccer. We want to be as good as the best teams!”
“Unfortunately, the first thing that they did was to remove us from the national team,” Banini told My New Favorite Futbolista. “There were several of us who commented on the things that could be improved.”
Among those issues were pay inequities and poor travel conditions. A daily newspaper in Buenos Aires called El Cronista reported that, in 2017, the women’s national team was forced to sleep on a bus after a game. Meanwhile, the men’s team traveled on chartered flights.
“We were punished by not being allowed to play for the National Team for three years,” Banini said. “These were very hard times, very sad times, because all we wanted was to improve this branch, to have what we needed to really grow.”
In 2022, after the Argentina women’s national team hired Germán Portanova as its new head coach, Banini was welcomed back.
The next year, in April 2023, Banini points to a moment that demonstrated tangible progress for women’s soccer in Argentina – when the women’s national team drew a crowd of 31,800 for a friendly against Venezuela.
“We did something similar to what the men’s national team does,” Banini said. “This euphoria of going to support the national teams I think is something that we are achieving together.”
Gaining support is one part of the fight for equality in soccer; equal pay remains another. The “My New Favorite Futbolista” team took a deep dive into disparities in progress for women’s soccer in the United States and Argentina.
In the United States, it’s been a lengthy and high-profile fight towards equity for female players, championed by the players themselves. In 2022, the USWNT was awarded $24 million in an equal pay settlement. They now receive the same pay and prize money as the men’s national team, including in the World Cup. Meanwhile, in Argentina, the basic salary for a first-division female player is the same as the salary for a fourth-division male player, according to Argentine TV news network TodoNoticias.
“It’s difficult because a lot of girls have to study, they have to work and they have to do other things to be able to get to training with barely enough money or eating what they can,” Banini said.
When it comes to the sport’s strides for women in the United States, Banini points to the burgeoning youth soccer infrastructure, which she observed during her time playing for the NWSL’s Washington Spirit.
“I think they are ahead of the game, by many years,” Banini said of the U.S. “Schools support soccer at a very professional level. The truth is that they give soccer an impressive value and it is something that we need to admire. And it’s not only soccer, it’s any sport. So I think it’s something that they definitely have to do in Latin America.”
As she reflects on her own childhood experience and soccer’s current state, and as she prepares for what will likely be her last World Cup, Banini, 33, still sees plenty of room for improvement.
“I get messages from mothers asking if I can please share certain things, that their daughters are not allowed to play with boys,” Banini said, in reference to Argentina’s next generation of female players dealing with the same challenges that defined her early career. “And it’s sad, sad because more than 20 years have passed and the same thing is still happening.”
Still, Banini celebrates the advancements the sport has made, which include a program Córdoba, a province in Argentina, started in 2021 called “Women to the Pitch,” an initiative meant to provide more fields to young girls who want to play soccer.
Despite the personal consequences of her campaign for better conditions for herself and her teammates, Banini feels the effort has been fruitful.
“I always try to bring out the positive things and I think it worked,” she said. “It worked so that Argentina could have a change, and so that we can grow today under a new coaching staff.”