«En poco tiempo, la selección femenil había logrado muchas cosas, aunque fuera amateur. ¿Qué hubiera pasado si nos hubieran ayudado a crecer?» - Alicia Vargas “As Leah Caleb and her England teammates stepped off the plane that had taken them to Mexico City, they were greeted by huge crowds at a packed airport. Arc lights illuminated the night sky. ‘One of the other players turned to me and said: “There must be someone special here,”’ Caleb remembers. ‘It was us.’” “It was us! We couldn’t believe it. And there were crowds and crowds. It was like going into the Tardis and coming out and you were in another world.” - Chris Lockwood- (HistoryExtra.com / Archive / BBC, "The Lost Lionesses" / Archive) Half a century has passed since Italy held the first Women's World Cup in 1970, won by Denmark. The next year, the Federation of Independent European Women's Football took the tournament to Mexico. What followed was an incredible event, one of the biggest in women's sport history. It emerged without warning, and still boggles the mind today. But what was this World Cup? Its legacy, as a hidden history, remains undecided. The start of an era? The end of an era? The big time? 'A distant dream'? El Partido del Siglo? 'Too commercial'? (.....said Fifa!)Maybe it was none of those, maybe it was all of them. Qualifying France v Netherlands, April 1971 “We were playing at the highest level and it’s always an honour to represent your country. It’s a privilege and you have to be aware of that and make the most of it. You don’t always realise straight away but being able to experience that is a wonderful opportunity. There’s nothing better than an international match.” - Marie-Louise Butzig - (img: Footofeminin.fr) “I don't think we knew what to expect. We had only played in the small qualifying tournament in Sicily, which was played on the park-type pitches we were used to.” - Chris Lockwood- (BBC, "Mexico 1971: When women's football hit the big time" / Archive) The women's World Cup finals were advertised and sponsored as a major tournament, after Mexico also successfully hosted the 1970 men's Mundial. This equivalency included having the main women's matches in one of the world's largest stadiums, the Estadio Azteca, where a Mexico men's game held 119,853 fans in 1968. The host team opened the women's championship on 15 August. Their opponents Argentina qualified by beating the experienced Costa Rica. - (Unlocking the Hidden History) Group 1 “I have beautiful memories of the World Cup. Seeing so many girls from all over the world playing football moved me because that didn't happen in Argentina ... Going out onto the pitch and seeing that huge stadium packed was exciting. After my first goal people started singing for Argentina and my legs shook.” - Elba Selva- (primicias2262.com) Selva scored not 1 goal, but 4 as Argentina beat England, 4-1, the first Argentinian win in a Women's World Cup. The match date, 21 August, has been named the annual Day of Women Footballers since 2018. Elba Selva: Dia de la futbolista - 21 de Agosto With two wins, Mexico topped the group: Mexico 3 - 1 Argentina Rubio 21', 54', Hernandez 30' / Cardoso 34' Group 2 These games were staged in Guadalajara, at the Jalisco stadium. Both the champions and the bronze-medallists were in this group. Italy eventually won in the 3rd-place playoff, 4-0 against Argentina with a hat-trick by Elisabetta Vignotto. This was her first tournament in the 20-year career of the country's top goalscorer. Semi-finals Mexico and Italy were rivals from their Women's World Cup semi-final of 1970, which ended in a fight over the match ball! But Mexico's top scorer from a year earlier was not in the initial XI in 1971: “‘La Pelé’ Vargas started the tournament on the bench. Although the Mexicans won the match 3-1, the press claimed that the coach, Víctor Meléndez, had not lined up the best player on the team. ‘It was strategic’, he replied. ‘But I knew he was not so convinced. I didn't enter until the second game, against England, and I made the 4 assists. And then, in the semifinals, we got revenge against the Italians. Again there was a brawl, even a linesman ended up with a black eye. The Italians were tough.’” - Alicia Vargas- (Luchadoras.mx: "Alicia Vargas: La primera ídola del futbol mexicano" / Archive) - (ludopedio.com.br / Archive) Final Mexico v Denmark Mexico City, 5 Sep 1971 The colossal crowd size is somewhat more famous than the match, as around 110,000 fans visibly filled the giant Azteca for an anticipated home victory, the tournament's second attendance to be reported in six figures (the Game of the "Century", see). On the field, each team had a gifted teenage striker, Mexico's Vargas and Denmark's Susanne Augustesen – the latter scored a hat-trick, and that gave a Danish team a second women's world championship. - (img: The forgotten triumph/Den glemte triumf, fodboldforpiger.dk / Archive) In a now familiar disagreement, the Mexican team demanded more money to participate in the final. That caused chaos and a media frenzy in the week of the game, but they weren't joined by Denmark: “‘The Mexicans must be content with our sympathy, but we will not break the agreement we have long ago made with the organizers.’ ... This did not prevent the Danish captain [Lis Pedersen] from expressing that she now believed Martini could have shared out the profits, as it was clear that the tournament would be an audience hit. ‘I have saved 2,000 kroner together to be able to participate, and when we return home on Tuesday, every penny is spent…’”- (fodboldforpiger.dk) Mexico 0 - 3 Denmark - (Augustesen 26', 52', 62') England 1972? The English team were badly treated by the WFA on returning home. After the FA's 50-year ban on women's teams, the squad had not named themselves England but 'British Independents', not using the three lions. But the new women's association, in an ultimate irony, briefly banned team members for playing in a tournament that it opposed. Another Women's World Cup in England, sponsored by Geoff Hurst, Alf Ramsey and others, was also vetoed by the WFA. Across the North Sea, the champions Denmark had a similar problem, as Birte Kjems recounted: “We had a tournament all over the country but now [with the DBU] we had to start from level zero with small local teams. We were winning matches 9-0 so it was very boring, especially for me as a goalkeeper. And at the national team we were no longer allowed to play in unofficial tournaments, only against nations whose women’s team had official status. So for years we could only really play against Nordic teams. I and other players lost some of our best football years because men insisted on doing things their way and weren’t quick enough about it. So I think, even now, it is very important for women to stand up and do things for themselves. Don’t wait for men to do it for you.” And the finalists of 1971 talked about their experiences, Mexico's forgotten team: La Tri Olvidada (Selección Mexicana Femenil 1971), Alicia Vargas, Bertha Orduña, Irma Chávez Barrera & Martha Coronado
I read about this last summer, or more specifically about the English women's team. Playing on park grounds, not getting paid, fighting off the harassment, and then showing up in Azteca in front of 100,000 fans. That must have been both overwheming and amazing.
Hardly anyone interviewed the teams until 2018/19, from what I can gather - most of the quotes are from then. The tournament is almost unmentioned in Jean Williams' 2003 UK history book, and not much info seems available on Italy's 1971 team, although they'll have plenty for their 1969 and 1970 tournaments. There was also a 5th-place playoff won by France: 28 Aug 1971 England 2–3 France Janice Barton 10', 16' / Armelle Binard 12', Jocelyne Henry 22', Ghislaine Royer 32' The Argentina v Costa Rica qualifying score isn't on RSSSF's list (from 2004). In Europe, Sweden were perhaps unlucky to meet Denmark, who eliminated them 5-0; another game that year was 4-3. There's a chapter from the Danish book by Hans Krabbe, about Denmark's 1971 pre-tournament, on idraetshistorie.dk (Archive) France-Netherlands is the first match that Fifa counts, but extremely retroactive. As their article above says, that wasn't decided until the rankings began in 2003. And the French Football Federation didn't recognize the game until after France had won it! (So, if the Netherlands had won...) Hence the mixed signals about Scotland-England in 1972.