Real Madrid: #ConPasionComoMisa and the battle against misogyny in football

During Real Madrid‘s Champions League triumph over Liverpool, goalkeeper Misa Rodriguez posted a tweet that served as an inspiration to many fans. She tweeted a photo of herself celebrating next to a photo of Marco Asensio celebrating after the right winger scored to give Real a 2-0 lead over the Reds.

But unfortunately, this wonderful, heartwarming tweet took a turn due to the blatant misogyny of miserable, sexist trolls on Twitter dot com.

While social media, specifically Twitter, can be a great way for fans to interact with each other and have fun connecting as a supportive community, there are so many nameless, faceless bigots who can say whatever they want with zero consequences and not the slightest bit of accountability.

They attacked Misa with awful, gross misogynistic comments that I will not bother showing you or repeating. The comments were so numerous and vile that Misa ended up deleting the tweet.

Real Madrid players tweeted their support for Misa with the hashtag #ConPasionComoMisa, which spread to other clubs

Nobody should have to go through that. Nobody should have to deal with misogyny in 2021, and it is disgraceful that fragile men would feel so threatened by Misa posting a celebratory tweet that they would send such hate at her.

But they did not get the last word. Other Real Madrid players – current and former – started tweeting their support for Misa with the hashtag #ConPasionComoMisa

Marcelo, Casemiro, Alvaro Arbeloa, and Esteban Granero were among those who tweeted. And Asensio himself chimed in:

Even other clubs tweeted photos of both their women’s and men’s teams and players celebrating, side-by-side, with the words “Misma Pasion”.

That means the tweets went even beyond Misa. It became a movement of team accounts, fans, and players reminded the world that women’s players have the same talent and passion and deserve the same respect.

Although it is unfortunate they do not get the same respect because of these bigots, we can change that. We have the power to change that and use our voices to show the misogynists that they are not in the majority. We can show them that we have no tolerance for them and that their words will not have meaning in the face of our support.

And for those of us who are men, it becomes especially important to lend our support by watching matches and approaching women’s football with passion for the matches in the same way. The women’s players have the same passion, and therefore as fans, we must reciprocate that.

There is zero tolerance for misogyny in football. We need to take that more seriously as fans and understand the toll it takes for players to have to see these kinds of horrible comments each day. They are professionals, but there are fans who do not treat them as such. And we must drown them out and show them that they are not welcome, while lending tangible support to the women’s footballers who work incredibly hard at their crafts and deserve recognition.

It is wonderful to see the groundswell of support for Misa and players across clubs, but the support should not stop here. And we must make sure it does not stop here.