Natalia Gaitán is pursuing her childhood dream: to be a champion Lioness with Santa Fe in the women’s league

Natalia Gaitan She always knew where she was going to end her career. Her heart is red and white, by inheritance. It took her a long time to step onto a pitch dressed in those colours. And now she will be able to do so in a final. It will be her first home game at El Campín. And she could lift her first title in Colombia, against a very tough rival like Cali, who won 2-1 in the first leg. The dream of the fourth star of the Leonas is alive.

In July 2016, when she was preparing to play in her second Olympic Games and the Women’s League was just a project in which it was not even known which teams would participate, Natalia already knew where she wanted to play. “My father and my brother are from Santa Fe. Playing in my country would be the culmination of my sporting career,” he said at the time.

Gaitan’s persistence

To get to this point, at 33 years old, Natalia has not had a bed of roses. At 4, she had to undergo chemotherapy: she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. “It is still a mystery exactly what caused the leukemia. We do not know if it was genetic or a virus. The truth is that, thanks to God and the care we gave her, today she is where she is: winning and celebrating,” declared, years later, Natalia’s father, Guillermo Gaitán.

After winning the most important duel of her life, Natalia grew up: after trying her luck with tennis and swimming, she found her greatest motivation in football. And so, at the age of 12, she joined the Internacional club, where she played her first tournaments abroad. She was playing there when in 2008 she was called to be part of a team that made history, winning the South American Under-17, the first official women’s title won by a Colombian team. The ‘Powerpuff Girls’ were born.

For many years, she was one of the leaders of a team that began to qualify for World Cups and Olympics. And football also opened the doors for her to study: in 2009 she received a scholarship to the University of Toledo in the United States, where she graduated as a business administrator while becoming one of the best defenders in the university league in that country.

From the United States she went to Europe, but her first experience was not good. She arrived at the Transportes Alcaine club in Zaragoza (Spain), together with another Colombian, Oriánica Velásquez. But she could not adapt, so she returned to the north of the continent, only to gain momentum and fly higher.

Colombia’s great performance in the 2015 World Cup, when the team advanced beyond the group stage for the first time, opened the doors to Valencia, where he played for five years, and then to Sevilla, where he spent two more seasons.

And she also established herself in the National Team, where she began to speak out. In 2018, a group of players, led by Natalia, Isabella Echeverri and Melissa Ortiz, made complaints about the management of women’s football in Colombia that served to change things, but also to close doors. She won the gold medal at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima and that, without knowing it, was her last tournament with the National Team, at just 28 years old. She was never called up again.

After a year at Tigres, Mexico, she arrived in Santa Fe as a reinforcement for last year’s Libertadores. “I hope to be able to help, share my experience and achieve great things. I like to win, I am competitive and I am joining a team that has made winning a habit,” she said.

It was not an easy start. Santa Fe did not make it past the group stage, despite playing at home in Techo. And Natalia suffered an injury that kept her off the pitch until last Sunday, when she made her debut in the Women’s League, no less than in the first leg of the final, against Cali. A childhood dream came true…

Her teammates recognize her weight, contribution and experience. “I saw Nata on television at the 2012 London Olympics (…). When they told us that Nata was going to come to Santa Fe, it was crazy. I have even told her that, for me she has been a role model, an idol since she was little, for the player that she is, but also for the person that Natalia Gaitán is. What she has added the most to the team is that calmness, that balance that she has on a personal and sporting level,” said yesterday the captain of Santa Fe and member of the Colombian National Team, María Camila Reyes. Natalia is an example and now she hopes to seal a great career with a title.

JOSE ORLANDO ASCENCIO

Sub-editor of SPORTS

@Josasc

More sports news