Starting from the age of seven, soccer has been the heart of Catalina Castro’s life. The beautiful game is one of the things she knows best. After sacrificing time, money, and the ability to spend time with her family and friends, the work Castro’s done has finally paid off. The beautiful sport has given her the opportunity to train and play for her home country, Colombia.
Castro’s career in soccer had begun because she “was inspired by watching [her] brother play as [she] was growing up, and [her] dad also played his whole life, even in college”.
Castro is currently playing for Prime FC and is a right back. Castro had made many previous attempts to receive the opportunity of playing for “La Selección Femenina de Colombia”.
After many failed attempts, Castro thought she had lost her chance to play for her home country. However, she was wrong when she had finally been contacted by the national team coaches.
They had previously been in contact with her, and also had all her game film in their archives, and they finally had given Catalina the opportunity to play for the Colombian National team.
Castro said “it was super organized from the start”, the girls were given a daily itinerary.
The itineraries normally consisted of workouts in the gym and team training for the morning session. The girls would then have lunch together and an afternoon training would follow shortly after. Finally, after a long day of hard work, the girls would get together for dinner. As well, there would be nightly film sessions and medical rounds.
“In general, I always felt like I was being taken care of,” says Castro, reflecting on her daily experience.
“The coaches were good mentors that made us feel so comfortable everyday, and the girls became like my second family” she says spending so much time together made them so close so fast.
After looking back on her experience in Colombia, Castro says “being over there made me realize how lucky I am to have even gotten that opportunity,”
Knowing that this was a lifelong dream that she thought before was unattainable, she says “there are so many girls I know would have wanted to be there too, so I just learned to be super grateful.”
Achieving her lifelong dream has not only given her motivation, but it “has given [her] so much more love and ambition for the sport because going out everyday to train with girls who loved it as much as [she] did just made [her] more passionate.”
Castro’s story with the Colombian national team does not end here though. She will “continue to keep working to be able to have more opportunities with the team” Castro said.
Hopefully in the near future, we will see Castro representing Colombia on the international stage, and make Pines Charter proud.
