The Backroom Staff - Coach: Nádima Skeff

Coach: Nádima Skeff

A football life on both sides of the game

While women’s football has - in many cases, rightly - been celebrated for it’s rapid growth in recent years, that progress has not translated evenly across the game. Increased visibility at the top level has not been matched by a similar rise in women holding positions of power. This season, only 5 of the 18 head coaches in the Women’s Champions League league phase are women, and just 7 of the top 20 women’s national teams (per FIFA rankings) are coached by women. By contrast, 100% of the equivalent roles in the men’s game are held by men.

Nádima Skeff is part of a new generation of coaches challenging those boundaries. A former Brazilian youth international, she built her playing career across futsal and a dominant college career in the US (All-American, Hall of Fame, among other honors) before transitioning into coaching at both youth and senior levels. After several years coaching, she went back to playing and played professionally in Europe and Brazil (!) Today, she is a head coach in Brazil’s men’s game at Sfera FC, an innovative academy project in São Paulo focused on long-term development, education and social responsibility - while still developing elite level players.

In this interview, Nádima reflects on her unique career as a player and a coach. She shares her experiences growing up in Brazilian football as a girl, the pay to play realities of the US system, the differences between coaching men and women, and why she believes the most important skill for modern coaches isn’t gender or specialisation - but contextual intelligence.

The interview has been condensed and lightly edited for grammar and clarity. 

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[ Background ]

Every time someone asks me how I would like to tell my story, there are some things that are very important to know.

I'm Brazilian, and football is the most important thing. I am from the 1990s, so I saw the golden age of Brazilian football. The impact of the national team in 1994. The first time I cried about football was the World Cup Final in 1998. Then, the success again at the World Cup in 2002 - everyone growing up at that time was very passionate. Brazilian football had Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Romário, the best players in the world for a decade.

I’m from Brasília, the capital of Brazil, and in Brasilia, we play a lot of futsal and I played futsal my whole life until I was 20 and moved to the United States.

I’m also a girl and there are a lot of things to say. I’m from a country that says football is a place for men, not for women. At that time, there was no women’s football. Sure, we had Marta, but we didn’t see Marta. We had Sissi, but we could not see her. At that time, I didn’t know women’s football existed, I didn’t know there were other women playing football.

I loved playing football, and I grew up playing with the ball. Many times, people would question if I was a girl, question my sexuality, question why I was there and if I belonged there but still, from very early on, I knew I wanted to be a professional footballer. I didn't know how, but I wanted to play professional football.

I came from a generation where the girls could not play with the boys - we could train with the boys, but we couldn’t play official games. So, I pretty much just trained from about 8 years old until I was about 15. I would train every day with the boys but then the weekend would come and I would just be in the stands watching. I never played a game.

Unfortunately, I came from a family that did not challenge this idea. It just was what it was, and there was nothing I could do.

[ Youth national team ]

Then, when I was 15, someone (who is now the Brazil U20 national team coach) saw me playing and invited me to play adult women’s football. I played football and futsal at the U20 level and the adult level. At that time there were no ‘age groups’ like U15s or U17s, it was just U20s and adults.

For futsal, it was pretty nice. We had a full calendar of games, including school games, university games, city games, state games and national games. But for football, we only had like 2 months of football for players to train. So, I was basically just a futsal player.

When I was 17, I was invited to the U20 (football) national team even though I’d pretty much only played futsal! I tried to make it work, I went back to my city and trained with the boys and tried to get used to it. I made more appearances and went to the U20 South American Championship, but I didn’t go to the World Cup.

Then, I was invited to go to a university in the US, and that’s pretty much when I started really playing football.

[ How did you go from the Brazilian youth national teams to a US university? ]

I think because there was no professional football in Brazil, a lot of the people in my generation went to the US to play at universities. A lot of it would be word of mouth, players - and some of friends - would go and they would talk about me and then someone would somehow watch some games or get some videos.

I had a dozen or so invites from different universities asking me to play for them. I was so unaware of the university leagues and the levels and how much money there was. I was so used to no one valuing women’s football that, at first, I couldn’t believe someone would help me that much to go play. I was extremely skeptical, to the point that I missed a lot of opportunities.

I was already in college here in Brazil and feeling extremely disconnected to the other people in my course. I was spending every day playing football, traveling for football and I had no experience whatsoever with my course, while my classmates were doing internships.

I was pretty much thinking that I have to leave football - although it’s my whole identity, it’s what I’ve done my whole life - because I wasn't sure how I would pay my bills. I didn’t know what I was going to do, because there was no professional women’s football at that point.

And then, I got another offer, a lesser offer maybe, but it was a full ride, and I just felt connected to the head coach. And I went. I went to the US and lived in Savannah, Georgia for 6 and a half years. I got my degree in public health and I played for 3 seasons and that was an amazing experience. It was pretty awesome being in a country that values female athletes, gives support and treats women who play football very respectfully. I felt, I don’t know, abused, mentally, because society didn’t approve of what I was doing, so it was very nice, like fresh air, and I enjoyed it very much.

I loved playing and my seasons were pretty remarkable for me and for the university. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back to Brazil and be back in that environment, so I decided to stay in the US and start coaching and get my master’s degree.

[ Your career arc is very unique. After college, you stopped playing and coached for several years before going back and having a professional career as a player too! Why did you decide to ‘go back’ and pursue a player career? ]

When I was coaching, I often had some thoughts like, why did I stop playing? I was so good! I didn’t want to stop playing but I couldn’t see any opportunities to continue. In Georgia, there were no professional clubs and I wasn’t sure how I could get seen by other clubs - there was no social media or agents then! And then, the professional league (WPS) went bankrupt as well and there was no professional women’s football in the US that year.

I had been offered to continue at the university and do a master’s degree, and it seemed like the right thing to do.

I realized then that I was never a person who liked to play football. I really liked to compete in football. So, when I stopped playing competitively, I didn't play at all anymore - not for fun, not in pick up games, nothing.

But, after a few years of coaching, I started really dreaming about playing football again. I was really thinking like, hey, I'm not sure if I stopped at the right time, I think there are more opportunities. I also wanted to coach in a different country, at a different level and I think the doors would be more open to me if I was playing.

So, I went back to all my contacts and told them of my plan to play football again. I started playing in Brazil, but with the intention to better understand women’s football in Europe. I ended up playing professionally in Denmark and got my license in England. Unfortunately, I got injured in a country where women’s football was not so professional and I didn’t have the support going through my injury. But it was okay, I’d been coaching for 6 years by then, I love coaching and I’d gained some experience in several countries.

[ While you were coaching in the US, you also did several degrees, including two master’s degrees - why? ]

I wish it was a beautiful story about how much I love school, but actually, it was just because of the visa, the easiest visa to get was a student visa.

I feel like my first master’s degree - in Georgia - was very important because I also had to be a teaching assistant. I was exposed to 20-70 students in each class. I feel like a lot of coaches don’t know how to teach and I think it’s important to be able to coach a session without being intimidated by it. When I started teaching adults, I learned how I can articulate my ideas and motivate people better.

The second master’s - in Rhode Island - was very difficult and a completely different experience. I was able to ‘build’ the degree around teaching and understanding youth players. I studied things like the differences between women’s and men’s society and how that reflects on coaching - like, how do we teach them differently? This research and thinking was very impactful for me and pretty much the pivot point of my life.

[ You’ve played and coached in the US and Brazil and have mentioned some of the differences in e.g. how women’s sports are supported in the US vs Brazil but what are some of the differences you’ve noticed between the actual players and coaches in Brazil and the US? ]

I love that question, because I feel like we have the tendency to always look at the differences in gender but not as much in the social-cultural, socio-economic and social-political fields.

I remember, when I really wanted to leave the US, I knew that if I am a coach in the US, I can make a lot of money. Like, that’s probably the place where I can reach a level of financial independence very fast. However, I don't like the idea of pay to play. I don't like the idea that football was a privileged sport. I don’t like the ECNL idea. I don’t like that there’s no promotion and relegation - I understand why it doesn’t exist at the professional level, I understand the business idea but why are things like that at youth level too? I really don’t get it.

Here in Brazil, I really am in love with the idea that anyone could be in the first division. If you work hard and try to be creative in the way you work, anyone can go up and it gives chances for small clubs to become a big club. The whole pay to play system is just not why I love this game. I want to be with people that actually love football and don’t just play because it’s a status or it’s comfortable.

Another example, when I was playing, I don’t remember hearing this, but when I started coaching, we were talking about a very, very good player to a college coach and that was the first time someone gave the feedback that, ‘she’s too small’. I was like, ‘what, are you kidding me?’ I’d never heard this in my life that a really good player is not good enough because of their size.

It was really frustrating working in the US because there are so many good players out there but the opportunities are so ‘networked’. We had a player who was with me for 4 and half years and she was just different, she was so good. We tried many times to get people to come see her and no one would appreciate her. She was never in the US national team radar.

I told her I knew she was at the highest level. I really wanted to bring her to Brazil to play for me professionally when she was 18! And then, literally, Juventus from Italy, saw her play and wanted to sign her. They even told her, ‘we don’t really bring a lot of Americans from university but we think you’re at the level’. So, she went to Juventus and within 3 months, she was called up to the national team.

That’s so crazy because an Italian guy was able to come here - where she’s been all her life - bring her to Juventus, where she’s starting in the Champions League, and all of a sudden people recognize what I saw when she was like 12. It doesn’t make any sense.

So, I should be more thankful for my time in the US, and I loved it, and it was 8 very intense years. But, definitely, I would never go back to coach at club level there because it’s not fair. I’m from Brazil, football is free everywhere.

[ Currently, you’re coaching a boys’ team at an interesting looking club - Sfera FC - how did you end up in this role? ]

When I moved back to Brazil, I was coaching professionally in women’s football at a club that was in the men’s first division and in the women’s second division. Often, someone from the club would tell me they thought I could coach the boys there. But there were no women coaching boys, it just seemed impossible, and I started questioning why there are no women coaching boys here. It wasn’t my ‘purpose’, I was just asking and wanted to find out what was happening. When I went to school, when I got my licenses, I was sitting next to guys and we’re learning the same thing. Why, when we leave this classroom, are there two doors - women’s and men’s football - open to the guys but only one door for me?

Then, a professor in one of the courses came to me and told me about Sfera - a new project, a new club, that was interested in having women in their technical department.

Sfera is built the way it’s built because the three owners - one from football and two from the investment world - see the world as a type of company. They want to have creative minds at the club. They want to have a club that reflects society - and society has women, so there’s no way they don’t have women there! They are very interested in doing things differently to what has already happened in Brazil.

In our club, we see things differently, and we go to places to understand what’s possible. They travel the world and try to understand different clubs and different cultures.

We have, what is pretty much a boarding school, with 105 kids from 13 to 20 who all get free education, free housing, food, coaching - everything for free and they also get paid a small amount. We have the biggest psychology department at the academy level in Brazil. We have small rosters and an individual approach that’s very centered on the players. We think about the players in the long term, we don’t just ‘fire’ them every year and bring in new players because they’re bigger or something, we have patience.

I can go on and on with the list of why our club is different and why we’ve had so much success in less than 3 years of operation. We already play equally with the biggest clubs in Brazil like Palmeiras, São Paulo, Corinthians and Santos.

[ Do they have a first team as well? ]

No, I think the first idea from the club was to have a first team playing in the fourth division in São Paulo, which is a U23 league. But they realized that we’re doing such an amazing job, not only on the field but outside and how people see us, that the majority of our players are leaving by the time they’re 18. So, now we’re just focused on locating all the players we can between 13 and 19 and transfer them to a professional club after that. So, the U20s are our highest level.

We’re thinking about a first team on the women’s side that will start in São Paulo, in the state league, because it’s way cheaper compared to the men’s. But also, from a financial point of view, there’s less money to be earned (yet) in transfer fees on the women’s side. But within one year of operation, we already have a player on the national team and we know we’re going to be very competitive because we’re already in the top 4 in the state.

[ Have you faced any negative reactions from parents, opposing coaches or even the players while coaching a boys’ team? ]

I think I’m very privileged because I’m in a club where the owners, the directors and the other coaches want me there and respect me.

When I got to the club, I was an assistant coach. Within 3 weeks, the coach got another job and they promoted me. At first, I thought there was no way they were going to make me the head coach. What if the families didn’t like it? What if the agents didn’t like it? I had all these doubts and fears - not about my capability but about the reactions from other people. When the club told me they wanted me to be the head coach, I shared some of these doubts, and they pretty much said, if they feel this way, we don’t want them here - at Sfera, we have our own beliefs.

So, it’s very unique and very supportive. In the first year, it was a little odd because I’m sitting at the table with like 20 guys, but the president and the club have been very open to discuss and improve. All the players have been cool, I think they see it as, ‘she has the knowledge, she can help me, why would I not receive this knowledge just because she’s a woman?’.

Now, I’m in my third year and the club has already hired two other women to be in the technical department. But the club is also very aware that they’re not going to hire women just because they’re women, you need a lot of knowledge to support your presence here. Every time I’m in a conversation, people can see I’m not here just because of my gender.

The club really believes in me, and now, I’ve worked really hard and earned lots of respect and credibility. I have helped develop 3 generations at the club, the majority of the players crushing it in the U15s and U17s. I had the opportunity to coach them in the U14s. So, no matter what I do, there’s always going to be someone who will say some nonsense comment, but people can see the work I have helped to lead, and that can change people’s perspectives.

[ There’s been a few high profiles cases of coaches (of course, men) switching between women’s and men’s football (e.g. Phil Neville, Hervé Renard, John Herdman, etc), you’ve done the same - do you think this will become more common as women’s football grows or are they too different, that a coach should really be specialized in either men’s or women’s football to succeed at the highest levels? ]

From what I can tell, it’s not about the age or gender, it’s about the dynamic of the competition.

So, some coaches are going to come to a club, do very well and be able to lift that club up in just 3, 4, 5 games and bring them to a better place in the table. Some coaches can do that.

Some coaches specialize in holding up the culture, being able to bring everyone together, make people believe in the mission, and keep a long term view of the results.

And some other coach will come and do whatever job they do, and eventually they’re going to be replaced without making a huge impact on the results or on the culture.

I think this is the same in youth football and in women’s and men’s football. The best coaches are the ones who understand what’s happening - the dynamics of the league, the dynamics of the competition and the dynamics of the club and are able to adapt to that.

Sometimes, if you’re specialized in something, it’s not because you’re amazing at what you do or bad at anything else, it might be because you’ve just always done that and never experienced something else.

I don't believe anymore in the gender difference or the age difference, or even the difference in roles. I think the contextual intelligence required to be a good coach means a good coach can be an assistant coach, or a video analyst can be a coach - because they understand the game as a whole. I love to understand the players - where they come from, what drives them, why they have a bad day and what’s going on in their lives. I think that mentality makes sense in any of these scenarios - with women, men, young or old.

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