Josselyn was nervous from the moment she woke up on Sunday, October 27. Costa Rica’s Women’s National Team was playing a friendly match against Panama, but that wasn’t all: her name was on the team lineup for the first time.
“The dream that I’ve had since I was very little” was coming true, she shares.
Talking about soccer makes Josselyn Briceño’s eyes light up, so much so that the sparkle in her gaze shines through her slightly dark rectangular glasses, perfectly complementing her wide, almost constant smile.
Anyone could think that the spark in her eyes is due to her 2024 achievements: this year, the Guanacasteca played in her first U-20 World Cup in Colombia and also, at 18 years old, made her debut with the Women’s National Team, wearing the number 3 on her jersey.
But in reality, the sparkle in her eyes when she talks about soccer has been with her since the very first moment the sport captured her heart over 10 years ago.
On a field in Liberia, while her brother was playing a match and she was kicking the ball with her mom on the side of the field, a director from the Liberia Sports Committee approached her mom and told her they were creating a women’s soccer project and that she should bring the little girl. Josselyn was only five years old.
“And what my ‘ma’ tells me is that she saw my face, saw how my eyes lit up when they mentioned it was a girls’ team. She agreed. And here I am, this is where I’ve come,” Josselyn recalls, as if summing up in an instant her more than 10 years of relationship with the ball.
An uncomfortable equation
Josselyn is a defender, 18 years old, and has been playing in the first division of Costa Rican women’s soccer since she was 15, with the Sporting team from San José. She was born in Nicoya and grew up between Santa Cruz and Liberia, where she took her first steps in youth leagues. While she carries a bit of each canton in her heart, she defines herself as a Santa Cruz native.
“All my family is from there, the Briceños. My grandfather was from Santa Cruz, a marimba player and musician, and also because of the closeness I have with my grandmother, I feel like a Santa Cruz native,” she confesses. She moved to San José at the age of 15 with the sole goal of continuing to carve out her path in soccer.
Josselyn Briceño was born in Nicoya, her heart is from Santa Cruz and her talent is Liberian. She visits Guanacaste less than she would like, because the schedule between university and her profession keeps her very busy. But she says that every time she returns, the province gives her “that peace and that hug” that she always needs. Photo by César Arroyo Castro with artistic collage intervention by Sheyla Santana
Since she was little, she heard the typical comments that invalidate women in the sport, and over time, she developed the arguments to counter them.
“If they tell me that soccer isn’t for women, it’s like, ‘please, understand that it’s a sport, and sports are for everyone.'”
But she never imagined that the sexist judgments could escalate so much. Since her debut with the national team, the ‘Sele’, when she began to gain more media exposure, comments on social media questioned her sex, identity, and sexual orientation for one simple reason: her short hair.
“That really tore me apart. For a haircut that’s basically just aesthetic. It’s complex, and it’s heavy… and if I feel this way, I can’t imagine a ten-year-old girl wanting to have short hair,” Josselyn reflects.
“What hurt me the most at that moment was realizing that most of the comments came from people in Guanacaste,” she says… a little piece of land that runs through her veins and that she represents with pride.
She would love to say that those criticisms don’t affect her, but they do. To combat them, she has decided not to look at them. “Just practicing a sport is complicated, and for being a woman to make it even more complicated, I don’t think that’s something that should happen.”
Leaving her homeland and fulfilling the dream
On the day of her debut with the Senior National Team, Josselyn closed her eyes and sang the national anthem. She can’t choose just one feeling to describe everything that was going through her body: nerves, excitement, happiness, pride, fulfillment, gratitude.
And amidst the mix of emotions, she let it all go when the game started. “And I said, ‘I’m going to enjoy this, after all, this is why I’m here, it’s what I’ve always dreamed of, and I’m fulfilling it so young.'”
There was something else on the field that was giving her confidence: her teammates. “All these experienced players, who I admire so much, were advising me and telling me to stay calm, not to let anxiety take over my head,” she recalls.
In her words, they “embraced” her, a verb that women have redefined together in every field where they’ve been told they don’t belong.
“[I’m] very happy, very content, very grateful to know that I left Guanacaste and decided to come to the Greater Metropolitan Area to write my own story, and that I’m doing it little by little.”
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