Polish footballer Paulina Dudek’s journey with Paris Saint-Germain Féminine started in January 2018, as a center-back defender for Les Rouge et Bleu. In her four years with PSG, Paulina has won the Coupe de France in 2018 and the French league title last season, with a total of 94 games – and counting. As Paulina plays her fifth season sporting jersey #4 for Les Rouge et Bleu, follow the PSG defender’s biography below:

For Paulina, football was love at first strike: “It was just like, I saw the ball, and then I wanted to play… it was just so natural for me,” the 24-year old Pole recalls.

While the PSG Defender describes how football seemed to roll into her life out of “nowhere”, it’s clear that her commitment to the sport solidified in formative primary school years, when she started playing amongst boys in the field by her home.

The gender constructs that traditionally associate the sport with men or boys, meant that there were hardly any girls who Paulina could play with. These inequities translated into barriers on the field that prevented her from experimenting with different positions in the sport.

“I was just a goalkeeper for the moment because they didn't want me to play inside,” Paulina says.

Over time, Paulina’s teammates realized that gender didn’t dictate the difference in technical skills, dissolving some of the barriers previously uprooted against the defender. She progressed to join the football team in Gorzów Wielkopolski, and moved 80 kilometers from her hometown at the age of 13, marking the start of her professional career.

“I could play football more, but also with the girls, which was important for me,” Paulina says. “And that's how I actually started to play.”