Opinion – Renata Mendonça: As punishment for doping changed the history of promise of the women’s team

At the age of 19, Kerolin lived the expectation of realizing his biggest dream: to play in a World Cup representing the Brazilian team. She was at Granja Comary participating in training in January 2019, the year of the Worlds, when she received the call that changed her life.

“His anti-doping test was positive”, said the then coach of the athlete at Palmeiras, Ana Lúcia Gonçalves. The nightmare was just beginning.

She had lived one of the best years of her short football career in 2018. The national team’s coach at the time, Vadão, had put Kerolin on the pre-list for the World Cup. And suddenly, an avalanche of bad news: the positive test, the punishment (two years out of football), the end of the dream of going to the World Cup in France.

The girl from the interior of São Paulo who learned to dribble “playing” with a pit bull in the backyard did not imagine that life would present her with much greater obstacles to overcome. The childhood pit bull was real, but this one was far more terrifying. Two years without playing, two years without dribbling, without doing what he liked best.

To this day, Kerolin claims not to know where the banned substance he ingested was. She was punished for using GW1516 (modulator hormone) and probenecid (diuretic). At the time (2018), women’s football was not professional in most clubs and there was no stricter monitoring with athletes to guide them about prohibited substances.

Palmeiras athlete in 2019, Kerolin could not act and was training separately. The club continued to pay his salary and tried to appeal to ease the punishment, but to no avail. 2020 arrived, and the fast forward, dribbler and promise of the Brazilian team was left without a club. There was still a year to go until the end of the punishment.

It was hard to stay focused. Kerolin sought out digital marketing courses and other things to occupy her mind. But then came the coronavirus pandemic and the family’s financial difficulties increased. Anxiety attacks were frequent.

“I always helped my family, but without playing, I couldn’t do it anymore. We started to have a lot of difficulty. Sometimes I didn’t have anything to eat. I even borrowed money to pay when I started playing again. I had an anxiety crisis, no could sleep,” he said.

The psychologist of the Brazilian team helped Kerolin to overcome the crises and remain firm in the intention of returning to play. The ban would end in March 2021 (for official games), but the rule allowed her to return to training three months before that. And still in December 2020 came the chance for redemption. Coach Pia Sundhage included Kerolin in a call-up for training at Granja Comary the following month. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about her,” explained the technician.

It was an explosion of happiness. But when he took to social media, Kerolin saw a barrage of criticism. Nobody understood why the team’s technique was calling up a player who was not active. Her response was to run.

“I knew I would be out of game rhythm. I figured I needed to run as much as I could.” She got it right. The athlete drew attention for her performance in physical tests and, since then, she has not left the call-ups. “There I understood that the head takes you to places you can’t imagine.”

Today, Kerolin is one of the main players of Pia’s team, recently debuted in the North Carolina Courage in the United States, and lives the expectation of conquering the first star for Brazil.

But the doping episode brought lessons. “Today, if I’m in a restaurant drinking water and I go to the bathroom and the glass is on the table, when I come back, I don’t drink that water anymore. Not because I don’t trust the people there, but because I know what I went through” .

This “pit bull” was also left behind. The dribbles are now different – ​​thank goodness.