Linda Caicedo talks overcoming cancer, Colombias World Cup run and joining Real Madrid

May 22, 2024

At last summer’s Women’s World Cup, Colombian winger Linda Caicedo scored a goal against pre-tournament favorite Germany that typified the skills that make her a budding global star.

The 18-year-old raced towards a deflected shot inside the German penalty area where two opponents quickly converged to close her down. Caicedo took one soft touch and baited the two Germans by allowing the ball to trickle idly in front of her. She fluttered her feet in quick succession. When the Germans stepped towards her, Caicedo dragged the ball to her left with her right foot then quickly slalomed between them, before finishing spectacularly. It was a calculated move from a gifted player.

Caicedo’s shot nestled into the top corner of the German net, and bedlam ensued at Sydney’s Allianz Stadium. Caicedo was no longer a potential gamebreaker. She had officially announced herself to the world as a different type of talent.

Her stunning strike in that Group H match against Germany was voted as the best goal of the 2023 Women’s World Cup. It has been nominated for a FIFA Puskas Award as the best goal of the year, and Caicedo was shortlisted for the women’s Ballon d’Or. She also played in two youth World Cups last year and signed with Real Madrid in February. Accolades are becoming a normal part of Caicedo’s young career. This year, however, has been especially rewarding.

“This all makes me really happy,” Caicedo tells The Athletic from Real Madrid’s training ground. She may not win the Puskas Award and is still a few years away from winning a Ballon d’Or, but the goal she scored versus Germany will live in Colombian football lore for decades to come.

ARE YOU SERIOUS LINDA CAICEDO?! 😱

What a goal for Colombia 🇨🇴🔥 pic.twitter.com/rR0absMYmt

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) July 30, 2023

“That’s the football that comes naturally to me,” Caicedo says. “It’s joyful, it’s fun. It’s from my hometown. I’m still a very young player. It’s massive to be mentioned in these types of awards. It reflects the work that I’ve put in and the love that I have for this sport. But I don’t focus too much on that. I want to accomplish many things. I’m still young and there’s still so much that I can improve on and work on.”

Caicedo’s rise, however, was nearly halted before it even began when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at 15 years old. After making her professional debut at 14, life quickly taught her a lesson in humility.

“Yes, I’m a cancer survivor,” Caicedo says. “There are moments in my life when I stop to think, ‘I was so close to never doing what I love again.’”

Her diagnosis came at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which Caicedo said made everything much harder on her mental health. The pressure of a World Cup pales in comparison to the fear that she and her loved ones felt and the uncertainty that followed.

“It was a constant battle,” Caicedo says. “One day you feel fine and the next day you’re in the hospital. You’re there every two weeks being examined and worrying about your health. I learned to enjoy my time with my loved ones. That’s what I’ve taken away from that bad experience.”

The adversity and joy for the game of football have fueled Caicedo ever since. In November of last year, FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta called Caicedo “an extraordinary player” and said that Barcelona had been scouting her since her debut with Colombian side América de Cali. But he stopped praising Caicedo mid-sentence.

“Don’t make me reveal too much about Linda Caicedo because then other clubs will try to sign her,” Laporta said.

Barcelona has become a women’s football powerhouse and Caicedo was deemed integral to its future. The potential to see Caicedo and Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas together was certainly appealing. Caicedo is also an ardent Lionel Messi fan who grew up supporting Barcelona, which added to the speculation that she would play in Catalunya.

Teams from across Europe and North America, however, also pursued Caicedo, but it was the Catalan club’s rival Real Madrid Femenino’s ambitious project that ultimately won out. Caicedo headlines a roster that includes nine players from Spain’s women’s national team, including World Cup final hero Olga Carmona.

Caicedo joined Real Madrid last season and was intrigued by the club’s mission. Photo by Angel Martinez, Getty Images.

So far this season, Caicedo has scored one goal and recorded three assists across six games, and Real Madrid currently sits in third place. The Spanish club began play in Spain’s Liga F in 2020 but has yet to win a first division title.

“In the end, I felt that this was an excellent project,” she says. “If I’m being honest, I never doubted any of the things that they said they’d do with women’s football. I chose Real Madrid because I felt it was the best option for me. I felt that I’d grow here. The way they support the players, not just the men but also the women, is amazing.”

Her sincerity about Real Madrid’s commitment to women’s football is noteworthy. The majority of girls in Colombia don’t grow up with access to football. There’s been gradual progress, but in Colombia, and most of South America, football is widely considered as a sport that’s only meant to be played by men. Caicedo says that she has loved the game for as long as she can remember. No one pushed her to play. “It came naturally,” she says.

Despite Colombia’s quarterfinal berth during last summer’s World Cup, women’s football in the country has struggled to gain momentum. In 2019, the women’s professional league was on the verge of folding just two years after its inaugural season. That same year, after years of a glaring lack of institutional support, former national team players Melissa Ortíz and Isabella Echeverrí accused the Colombian Football Federation of sexual discrimination.

“We feel threatened. We are not paid,” Ortíz and Echeverrí said that year during a series of videos on social media. ”They don’t provide international flights for us. Our uniforms are old. The federation has excluded players for speaking out.”

Additional corporate sponsors have stepped in to support women’s football in Colombia. The women’s professional league survived, and in August, Colombian Football Federation president Ramón Jesurún said that more than $8 million has been invested in the development of the women’s game in Colombia.

But there’s a long way to go for women’s football in Colombia to become culturally entrenched in the country’s sports landscape. Even Caicedo, fresh off Colombia’s best finish at a World Cup, understands that women footballers remain marginalized.

Caicedo was born in Villagorgona, Colombia, on the outskirts of the bustling city of Cali. “That’s where I learned to be everything that I am today,” says Caicedo. “I’d go back home a thousand times over. It’s where I’m happiest.”

Her parents have always supported her, but she recalls receiving a doll as a Christmas gift and then turning to her parents to demand something else.

“I asked them to give me football boots and a ball instead,” says Caicedo. “There was a lot of machismo, but my parents were wonderful and they backed me. They looked for a team for me to play on.”

She learned to play on the streets of Villagorgona with the boys in her neighborhood. Football is Colombia’s most popular sport, and in Cali, the nearly three million people who live in the city are divided by two city rivals: América de Cali and Deportivo Cali, two of Colombia’s most successful clubs with similarly competitive women’s teams.

Caicedo played for both major clubs in Cali, Colombia before moving to Real Madrid. Photo by Gabriel Aponte, Getty Images

Caicedo debuted with América and won a league title in 2019. She moved to Deportivo Cali the following season, and, after her cancer treatment, lifted another league trophy with Cali in 2021. She was immediately deemed a generational talent and a future global star. Even before the 2023 World Cup, Colombia’s senior women’s national team has fielded competitive teams. They improbably reached the second round of the 2015 tournament, but very few players have been anointed as stars like Caicedo.

In Colombia, she isn’t compared to other female players. She’s being compared to the men. Last summer, former Colombia and Newcastle United striker Faustino Asprilla called Caicedo “a marvel.”

“She’s so impressive,” Asprilla said. “(Caicedo) is so young and in the midst of a learning process, but she plays as if she were much older because she understands the game so well. It makes us so proud that she’s Colombian.”

Asprilla’s former teammate and football legend Carlos Valderrama, simply compared her to Asprilla, whom Valderrama considers “one of Colombia’s best-ever players.”

In an age when many professional footballers have almost identical skill sets, Caicedo stands out with her unique qualities. She plays with flair and thrives in tight spaces. Get too close and she can make you look foolish. She isn’t the fastest straight-line runner, but her first touch is quick and clean. She’s comfortable on either wing and can also play as a No. 10.

“I admire a lot of top players but my style is one that’s played on the streets,” says Caicedo. “It’s streetball. That’s the game that I learned to play in my neighborhood. Playing with boys really helped me. I try to enjoy myself. The majority of the moves I make come naturally to me. I just want to be smiling when I play. It’s something that I really enjoy. It’s my passion.”

Despite her age and youthful grin, Caicedo carries herself like a veteran player. She has strong opinions about the state of women’s football but said that she doesn’t consider herself an activist. “Honestly, I’m a bit of an introvert,” she says. “I’m a laid-back person. The people who know me know what I’m like.”

Yet, she speaks with a sense of authority.

“Before we ask for anything, we as women footballers have to see ourselves as professional players because that’s who we are,” she says. “The support that’s needed should come from that place. I think it’s a process. It’s going to be difficult for women’s football to grow without support, without visibility. I really believe in the process. It’s a step-by-step process. We’ll continue to showcase our talent so that our football can grow and get to the highest level.”

Colombia played attractive football and competed with some of the top teams at the World Cup. Next, they’ll face the United States on Thursday, and again three days later in San Diego. It’s another opportunity to establish themselves as a formidable South American side. Asked if Colombia can become a world power in women’s football, Caicedo, never one to sugarcoat anything, answered customarily.

“I’m not sure,” she says. “I’m so impressed with the talent that we have but what keeps women’s football in Colombia from growing are in the smallest of details. Starting with me and along with all of my teammates, we have to continue fighting to get to where we want to be. I don’t think we’re too far away. I think we can do it.”

Caicedo called the World Cup “bittersweet” because she and her Colombia teammates were convinced that they could’ve advanced further. She speaks about the special bond that was formed inside the Colombia camp. The 2-1 loss to eventual World Cup finalists England was a heartbreaker for Colombia. Caicedo believes it also made the young Colombians hungrier for success.

“That’s football. We learned from it,” says Caicedo. “I feel that every player has reflected on what they need to do better in order to have what we all dream about.”

And what is that dream? “La Copa,” Caicedo says with a smile.

At 18, one should expect to see Colombia and Caicedo at multiple World Cup tournaments. In the meantime, her life in Madrid is that of a typical professional player. She spends a lot of her time at the Real Madrid facility. She describes Madrid as “a very big city”, an innocent sign of her humble beginnings in Villagorgona. She hasn’t had time to explore as much as she would like, and her recently adopted French poodle puppy keeps her close to home. There will be time to discover Madrid’s culture as her contract keeps her with the team for at least three years. For now, Caicedo is living a dream, whether it’s been fully fulfilled or not.

“I’m in Europe playing professional football. I’m still a girl who has dreams and someone who tries to accomplish my goals on a daily basis. I hope to do that. I hope to continue to improve every day and enjoy this time with my teammates. And I’m at this massive club which motivates me even more. Every day I can grow.”

(Top photo: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images; Design: Samuel Richardson)

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