How Saudi footballer Anan Al-Mahanna refused to let a defeat end her Women’s Premier League dream

ALKHOBAR: For Anan Al-Mahanna, the distance between years of hard work and a place in Saudi Arabia’s Women’s Premier League once came down to a single match.

The Saudi footballer had founded Al-Taqadom’s women’s team in the summer of 2023 and only months later had taken the club to the semifinals of the inaugural season of the Saudi Women’s First Division. The Al-Qassim province club was within one victory of promotion to Premier League. They lost 1-0 to Al-Taraji.

“We were a team with spirit and love for each other, and there were a lot of emotions that brought us together,” Al-Mahanna, 31, told Arab News.

“We reached the semifinal together through our team spirit, even though we faced many psychological and financial difficulties. We didn’t give up. We were one step away from the dream of reaching the Premier League, but unfortunately we weren’t successful.”

The defeat affected her deeply. After everything the players had invested in the season, watching another team earn promotion was difficult to accept.

“It was a hard feeling after we had worked and fought, only to lose in the end,” she said. “It affected me so much that I traveled outside Saudi Arabia for four months to get over it.”

But the defeat did not stall her career. She eventually tasted Premier League action with Eastern Flames, the club she now plays for.

“All the players, myself included, continued. We didn’t give up, and we all went on to play in the Premier League.”

Al-Mahanna’s relationship with football began long before a professional women’s league existed in Saudi Arabia.

She spent 16 years of her childhood in Egypt, where her father worked at the Saudi Embassy in Cairo. It was there that she began playing, encouraged by her older