Soccer Players Halt Game And Huddle Around Opponent As She Fixes Hijab
A women’s soccer match in Jordan goes viral after the opposing team rallied around a player whose hijab had come undone
A soccer match in Jordan took an unexpected detour when one of the player’s headscarves came undone. The player was wearing hijab, so when it came off during gameplay, she struggled to put it back on, and that’s when a beautiful thing happened. Several women from the opposing team rushed to this player’s side — effectively halting the game — and shrouded her from the crowd with their bodies until she was able to fix it.
“When a soccer player’s hijab started falling off to reveal her hair, her opponents gathered around to provide cover while she fixed it,” ESPN wrote alongside the video originally shared by the Jordan football league.
The video is so moving to witness because it perfectly encapsulates the power of women when we support one another. When women come together, we are a force to be reckoned with. It’s also beautiful to see opponents put their differences aside and to see a group of individuals not just respect a woman’s right to freedom of religious conviction, but actively work to support and nurture that right.
This Twitter user said it best when they wrote, “What an amazing display of cultural awareness within a competitive setting. These players instantly shifted their minds from trying to win a game to an inclusive mindset to help an opponent for something bigger than the game. Beautiful!”
There is a ton of misinformation out there regarding the Muslim headscarf and the women who wear hijab. Some see it as anti-women which further bolsters Islamaphobia, but as Nadia B. Ahmad and Asifa Quraishi-Landes so elegantly wrote for The Washington Post, “the notion that wearing a headscarf is inherently oppressive ignores the agency of the person who dons it. Third-wave feminism holds that women should get to choose which practices are best for them without having to contend with anybody else’s expectations. That, not an uncovered head, is what liberation looks like.”
It was this soccer player’s choice to wear one, and all those women on the opposing team understood that, respected her religious conviction, and not just that — stood by and supported her in that conviction.
“Sportsmanship. Nice to see in this day and age,” one Facebook commenter wrote. “They knew it was important to her and they stopped play to help.”
This video is a moving illustration of cultural sensitivity at work. Listen, understand, and support. We love to see women support and lift each other up like this. Here’s to more of this in the future!
