What if they lost? Would the village not let other girls play in the future? Twelve-year-old Rukku dreams of being a professional footballer someday. There’s just one problem: her village doesn’t think sports are for girls to pursue. But when a retired army officer starts a football coaching centre exclusively for girls in their village, Rukku becomes a part of a steadily forming girls football team. Sanjana Ganesh transports readers to Neerodi, a football-crazed fishing village in Tamil Nadu, where a determined young girl navigates the tides of the loss of her father, coming of age, and confronting the barriers of gender roles.
