Poule D by Yamina Benahmed Daho, published in 2014, is one of the only novels currently in existence that discusses women’s soccer. A testimony of a female soccer players seen from a writer’s perspective, Poule D enables a new understanding of women’s amateur soccer. In this article, we attempt to shed light on the world of women’s soccer by looking at it from the author’s perspective, outlining all the barriers she faced when it came to playing the sport. Despite sports literature having experienced a boom over the past two decades, we ask why female protagonists are still rare in the (French) literary landscape dedicated to soccer. How can we explain this silence while the French Football Federation recognized women’s soccer in 1970 and while the eighth FIFA Women’s World Cup was held in France in 2019? From a methodological point of view, this article borrows from the sociology of literature and questions the writing of the author. We also draw on interviews we conducted with the author, in order to gain a better understanding of the processes she used in the writing of her novel. Lastly, we undertake a gendered reading of Poule D, which sheds light on the scope of this work in terms of the history of women, and more specifically that of women’s soccer. by Yamina Benahmed Daho, published in 2014, is one of the only novels currently in existence that discusses women’s soccer. A testimony of a female soccer players seen from a writer’s perspective, Poule D enables a new understanding of women’s amateur soccer. In this article, we attempt to shed light on the world of women’s soccer by looking at it from the author’s perspective, outlining all the barriers she faced when it came to playing the sport. Despite sports literature having experienced a boom over the past two decades, we ask why female protagonists are still rare in the (French) literary landscape dedicated to soccer. How can we explain this silence while the French Football Federation recognized women’s soccer in 1970 and while the eighth FIFA Women’s World Cup was held in France in 2019? From a methodological point of view, this article borrows from the sociology of literature and questions the writing of the author. We also draw on interviews we conducted with the author, in order to gain a better understanding of the processes she used in the writing of her novel. Lastly, we undertake a gendered reading of Poule D, which sheds light on the scope of this work in terms of the history of women, and more specifically that of women’s soccer.