Eight-year-old Milagros Mili Hernandez is kind of awesome.
Shes been playing soccer since she was five, but was bumped up to a team full of eleven-year-olds after basically dominating girls her own age in Omaha.
She also has a really short haircut, mostly because it just gets in the way of her game when it starts to get too long. That should be a non-factor, but it came into play after sheshe helped her team move on to the finals of the Springfield Soccer Club girls tournament last weekend.
How?
Organizers suddenly disqualified Mili and her team, saying that Mili looked like a boy.
Mili’s dad, Gerardo Hernandez, immediately took his daughter and her insurance card which indicates her gender as female to the tournament, but organizers werent convinced and wouldnt let the team play.
I was mad; I never had that problem before. Shes been playing so long in different tournaments, he told The Washington Post. I dont want no problems with nobody, but that wasnt the right way to treat people. Why they want to tell my girl looks like a boy?
Mili was understandably confused, and naturally upset.
“She was crying after they told us,” Hernandez said. “They made her cry.”
“Just because I look like a boy doesn’t mean I am a boy,”Mili told WOWT. “They don’t have a reason to kick the whole club out.”
The tournament hasn’t publicly commented on the situation, but Mili is back playing, this time with the support of some very famous names on social media.
Abby Wambach, who has two gold medals, took to Instagram to send Mili a message.
“Dear Mili Hernandez, you are amazing in every way. Thank you for teaching us how to be brave and shining a light on something so hurtful. If you don’t know, she is my new hero. Her team was disqualified from a tourney cause they thought she was a boy because of a clerical error that wasn’t handled properly. Let’s meet soon sister,” she captioned the photo.
Mia Hamm, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and the co-owner of the Los Angeles Football Club, invited Mili to a Team First Soccer Academy camp.
And even those who don’t play soccer were quick to chime in…
