In the opening scene of the new documentary Copa 71 , retired American soccer superstar Brandi Chastain is asked what year the first Women’s World Cup took place. Without hesitation, she responds: “1991.” There’s a pause, and then off-screen the filmmaker says, “I’ve actually got something that I’d quite like you to watch.
” What’s revealed is remarkable footage of young women charging a soccer pitch in front of hundreds of thousands of roaring fans. Turns out that Copa 71, the first Women’s World Cup, took place in 1971 in Mexico City. It was the largest event in the history of women’s sport, drawing an estimated crowd of more than 110,000 people.
Copa 71 tracks the 1971 Women’s World Cup in Mexico City, an under-sung milestone in sports history. It challenged patriarchal systems that shut women out from sports. Trailer via Dogwoof on YouTube .
Chastain’s reaction — bafflement, shock and fury that this piece of history has been entirely excised from the annals of sports — echoes the main thrust of the story. How the heck did this happen? And how did no one really know about it until now? In systemic fashion, co-directors James Erskine and Rachel Ramsay set about recreating not only the history of Copa 71 itself, but also the greater cultural moment when women playing soccer was alternately viewed as either a joke or a threat. Or both.
The task of laying out the topsy-turvy story of women’s soccer falls to historian David Goldblatt, whose deadpa.