At the beginning of the 1980s Lecce dominated the women’s football scene. Alaska Lecce, a team founded in 1970 by the entrepreneur Ernesto Guariniinitially based in Veglie, has conquered three championships and two Italian Cups from 1980 to 1982 after the first promotion to Serie A in 1974. For many years, until the Casarano Handball championship in 2007, the team was the only club in the province of Lecce to win a major national championship in a team sport.
Among the foreign players registered by Alaska was Esther blue raspberry, arrived in 1976 from Mexico. In 1976 she emigrated to Italian football with Alaska Veglie (the change of location occurred in the 1980 football season), she was 18 years old. She became the first player Mexican to play professionally for a team abroad. In 1976 she scored 36 goals, in 1977 she did so 39 times and in 1979 she scored another 37. She also won two Serie B titles (1977 and 1979) and in 1977 she was chosen as the best foreign footballer after a match between the Italian national team and a team of foreign footballers.
The successes in Europe made Mora, striker for the Mexican national team in the first World Cup in 1991, the pioneer of women’s football from those latitudes. The official announcement of her entry into the Hall of Fame, as described by Proceso.com.mx, occurred after her participation in a conference entitled “the origin of the revolution called women’s football”. At the end, Mora received a standing ovation from the audience.
“It’s something important to close another chapter in my sporting life. It’s something I didn’t expect. Previously I was on other lists, but the recognition did not arrive due to the little information there is about my story. This fills me with satisfaction because it is a goal and for me it is an important thing to remain in the history of women’s football.”commented Mora.
Esther Mora’s story was told by Mexican journalist Enrique Ballesteros in a book entitled “Once upon a time there was a girl who played football”.
