A biting wind enveloped the Riyadh night on this last evening of February. An unusually cool breeze, but not enough to deter Al-Bairaq’s female football players from training on the artificial turf of a private school in the north-west of the Saudi capital. 14 players, ranging from teenagers to 30-somethings, had rented the equipment (at a cost of over €100 per two hours) for a final training session before a tournament in Jeddah in early March. Warmly dressed, with most wearing leggings under their shorts, they played a series of football tennis (a training exercise involving a…
