ESCAPE TO VICTORY

More than three years have passed since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan sparked a resurgence of the Taliban. It forced the country's women's team to flee, but they've inspired many since setting up home at Australian club Melbourne Victory. This is their remarkable story...

- Ed McCambridge

Khalida Popal can scarcely recall a time before the Taliban. Born in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, in 1987, she was just a child when the Islamist militant group rose to power, spreading their ultraconservative ideology across the country. Under the Taliban's brutal governance, women saw their individual freedoms heavily restricted. Being banned from participating in sport or attending stadiums became only the very least of their concerns.

As a young woman, Popal was expected to stay at home with her mother, cooking, cleaning and taking care of the household. But football so often finds a way. The youngster fell in love with the beautiful game and began meeting with friends in a secluded yard for clandestine kickabouts - keeping noise to a minimum to avoid detection. She knew the consequences could be severe, but resistance was futile.

"Football was an escape for me," Popal tells FourFourTwo now. "It served as a gateway to a place where I could get away from those pressures, in a country where you're told as a little girl that you can't do certain things because of your gender. Society and those in power decide on your behalf that you can't live your life the way you want to - that we don't have the same freedoms as boys."

Attendance to those forbidden games swelled after the Taliban's 2001 ousting, following Afghanistan's occupation by US-led forces. With the threat of corporal punishment - or worse removed, the girls felt emboldened to take to public playing fields, even challenging boys to games. Yet their courage faced significant backlash, as neighbours branded them 'prostitutes' for simply playing the game they loved.