Zara Musker says her teammates were skeptical of her at first because she had partial hearing loss and communicated verbally. Photo: Jess Hornby/The FA via Getty Images
Zara Musker's story could spark a bidding war in Hollywood. Her childhood was spent playing football in the parks of Blackburn, inevitably with boys. Then, despite worsening deafness, she managed to win over skeptical teammates by playing futsal for her country. It's the perfect storyline for a lighthearted sports movie.
We talk through laptops, Musker in a Manchester cafe before heading to Seville for a training camp. “My mother is in Madrid, I told her to come and see me, but she refused,” she says. “Five hours on the bus and she'd rather be sunbathing.”
In Mom's defense, she did her part by taking Zara to soccer every Saturday for years. Musker's mother played for Clithero Ladies while studying to become a nurse. “She has a big scrapbook with pictures of her scoring goals.”
In addition, Musker had no role models, since the soccer player was born without hearing in her left ear. There were other local heroes. “I really liked Robbie Savage, which is a little strange. I think it was just his character, the passion he showed that resonated with me.”
She and her younger brother hit the ball against the outside wall of their house so often that the cement began to fall out, and these years sharpened her touch. Starting with Blackburn Rovers and then moving to Everton, Musker won a scholarship to play for the University of Tennessee, but broke her ankle and struggled home after nine months.
It was 11-man football players, but Since her teens, Musker has lived a parallel sporting life with the England Deaf Futsal team (futsal is a five-on-five format of the game played on a hard surface pitch). All hearing aids are turned off before the game, and sometimes the colors are held to the side to start the turn, so the tactics need to be memorized.
Musker joins his deaf England futsal teammates at St George's Park as they prepare for the World Cup in Brazil in November. Photo: Jess Hornby/FA via Getty Images
“I was really scared at first. I didn't really like futsal. But when I continued playing it, everything changed for me. Now I would play it with over 11 players any day of the week.»
«I was completely devastated and inconsolable»
The turning point was her first tournament in Bulgaria when she was 17 years old. England lost to Germany in the semi-finals and Musker was shocked by their reaction. “The emotions that came out of me, I’ve never seen anything like it. I was completely devastated and inconsolable. Looking back now, it makes sense. It wasn't easy for me at first and I always had something to prove.
“I am a communicator, I communicate verbally. At first, some players said, «Oh, she can talk, so she's not deaf.» Having never used sign language in her youth, Musker initially felt ostracized. «There's a certain culture about it that I found difficult at first because I was like, 'What do you want me to do to prove that I'm deaf or that I'm part of this team?' That's exactly what I did. do it on the field.”
Several players from whom she felt hostility are still with her. «I'm sure if I went up to them now and said, 'Do you remember when you thought I wasn't deaf enough because I spoke?' it would get a laugh because I'm on a big team now.»
Musker is the only member of her family with hearing loss, and she says she didn't consider it part of her identity growing up. “I have never had any negative reaction to hearing loss. I think it was just a manifestation of self-esteem, just an attempt to fit into society.”
Her condition has been stable for 20 years, but over the course of a week in July 2020, she also lost hearing in her right ear. Suddenly, the hearing aids she relied on were no longer helping. “Psychologically you have to dig deeper, don’t you? I think sport will help me with this. It brings out that personality in you: 'OK, we're all set, what do we do now?'»
«The cochlear implant saved my life.»
In November of that year, she got a cochlear implant. “It changed my life, it saved my life. It had to work, it had to work — that was my thinking.
“It's not the same as hearing with the ear, because instead you hear with the brain, so you need to train the brain a lot. But I was committed to it because I wanted to get on with my life as I had planned.”
Last year, when her team self-funded its way to Italy, England won the European Championships and she was named athlete year for the deaf in 2022. Now back under the auspices of the Football Association, they head to the World Cup in Brazil next month.
If Musker's film was ever to be made, victory in Sao Paulo would be the perfect ending.
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