With determination, courage and lots of support, refugee players who form the Afghan women’s football team are getting another chance to advance their international careers, one that they say was denied to them when the Taliban returned to power in 2021.Among them is Fatima Yousufi, who fled her country and arrived in Australia with a backpack and a burning ambition to play international football.Yousufi and others like Mona Amini had been able to study and to play football until the Taliban took over and shut down all women’s sports. The national team players left Afghanistan, fearing persecution.After a frantic evacuation, 13 of the players settled in Australia, where for five years they lived, played and trained in the hope of once again being allowed to represent their country.This week, 23 members of the Afghan Women United program are in a training camp in Auckland, New Zealand, and will play games against a team from the Cook Islands.The national football federation doesn’t recognise the women’s team. But in April, football’s world governing body granted the Afghan women’s team eligibility for international competition.“It was a special day that we heard that Afghanistan can represent again our flag in international tournaments," Amini, a midfielder, told The Associated Press in a Zoom call on Tuesday (June 2, 2026). “This is the result of hard work that we did in the past four or five years,” she added.