Racheal Kundananji was just 17 when she showed up to practice with her first-ever soccer team wearing track spikes.
Until then, track and field was the only organized sport she had known in the Zambian copper-mining region where she grew up. Now she was sprinting around a bumpy patch of dirt that seemed more suitable for off-road biking than for soccer, displaying skills as rugged as the field itself.
“She would run very fast,” said Risto Mupaka, a coach of the team, Konkola Queens. But, he added, “turning was a problem.”
It didn’t take her long to figure out the game.