Speaking to FMT, Steffi recounts the many times she sat in awe, totally lost in the game, watching her father play football with his friends.

“He used to have these football matches and I would tag along to watch him play,” she says, still remembering vividly how she had made up her mind back then to become a football player someday just like her dad.

Obviously, she hadn’t considered that her gender would be her biggest barrier.

Once in school, she became all too aware of how football was generally perceived as a boys’ game and her school was in no hurry to introduce a football team for girls.

So, this Taiping-born lass of Punjabi, Chinese and Siamese heritage, did the next best thing – she participated in every other sport that her school offered.

She reserved her biggest passion – that of playing football – to after school hours, with a group of like-minded friends, all of them boys.

“I used to play football after school and was the only girl who would be playing,” she laughs, apparently not regretting one minute of it. While in school, she played the more conventional sports like netball, handball, badminton and even hockey.

Naturally inclined to sports, Steffi excelled in almost every sport she played. At 12 years old, she represented her state of Perak for handball. On two other occasions, she represented her state for hockey, once in the ‘Under 15 Category’ and later in the ‘Under 18 Category’.

Spurred on by these achievements, Steffi began to nurture even bigger dreams. She wanted to qualify for the national team so she could represent her country regionally and beyond.

“It didn’t matter for which sport. I just played many sports growing up hoping that I would be able to represent the country someday,” she says.

And represent the country she did in 2007 in the Southeast Asia Games (SEA) in Thailand.

And just five years later, she made the nation proud again when she and her teammates brought home the bronze medal for futsal at the SEA Games in Myanmar.

And in September this year, Steffi received the biggest honour ever when she was picked to play for the Malaysian Women’s Football team at the AFC Women’s Asian Cup Qualifiers, the biggest tournament in women’s football history.

Held in Palestine, she and her teammates faced the Thailand and Palestine teams there, winning their match against the Palestinians.

Clearly her journey as a woman footballer in Malaysia has not been all sunshine and roses. She has had to deal with her share of naysayers, including internet trolls who belittle her efforts in football.

“Many may say that girls should not be playing football, but I always take that as an opportunity to prove them wrong,” she says, explaining that one’s gender should not be a barrier to achieving one’s dreams.

She advises young girls eager to take up a sport, no matter how unconventional, to “not be afraid”.

“Nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it”.