SYDNEY (AP) — At 15, Linda Caicedo, now a star ahead on Colombia’s Women’s World Cup roster, acquired a crushing prognosis. She had ovarian most cancers.

Caicedo already had made her debut for the Colombian skilled crew América de Cali and the Colombian senior ladies’s nationwide crew.

With this information, although, her soccer profession appeared over.

“I remember I was going into surgery one day and I was feeling really bad,” Caicedo mentioned, “because I thought that I was not going to be able to play top-level football again.”

The Colombian ladies’s crew head coach, Nelson Abadía, offered phrases of encouragement over the telephone.

“He said, ‘No, just relax,’” Caicedo recalled. “‘You’re going to come back.’”

She’s now among the finest younger gamers on the earth.

The 18-year-old Caicedo is predicted to make her Women’s World Cup debut in Colombia’s opener in opposition to South Korea on Tuesday on the Sydney Football Stadium.

To these battling most cancers, Caicedo has a message: “I am an example that you can get out of that and overcome this.”

Tuesday’s match additionally might mark the World Cup debut of 16-year-old South Korea ahead Casey Phair. Born to a Korean mom and American father and raised within the U.S., Phair isn't anticipated to begin. Should she play, she would turn into the youngest participant ever to play in a World Cup, males’s or ladies’s.

“We just take it day by day,” South Korea coach Collin Bell mentioned Monday, responding to questions on Phair. “I don’t really want to hype up the young player too much before she’s even played.”

While Phair’s position isn't sure, Caicedo is predicted to begin and play a big half in Colombia’s efforts. For Colombians, she represents the potential of ladies’s soccer each domestically and internationally.

“She’s everybody’s hope,” mentioned Valentina Peña Orozco, sports director at W Radio Colombia. “Linda is Colombia’s promise.”

Caicedo performed in Colombia’s Liga Femenina for a number of years earlier than signing with Real Madrid in February. She tied for the scoring lead on the 2021 Copa Libertadores Femenina for Deportivo Cali and was named the very best participant within the 2022 Copa América Femenina.

Her efficiency on the Copa América helped safe Colombia’s spot within the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

Caicedo additionally scored twice and recorded 4 assists in 10 appearances for Real Madrid final season.

Colombia’s match in opposition to South Korea might show pivotal, as the 2 nations are anticipated to compete for a spot within the knockout rounds from Group H. Germany and Morocco are also within the group.

Abadía has coached Caicedo since she was 12 and introduced her into the senior crew when she was 14. He’s been Colombia’s nationwide ladies’s crew coach since 2017.

“ We know the players’ enormous ability, and we know that those brilliant moments that each one has - we’re going to have them,” he mentioned.

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Zeke Palermo is a pupil on the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.

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