KHARTOUM, Feb 23 (Reuters) - After five years of playing her first love soccer behind closed doors in Sudan where Islamic laws restricted female sports, Sara Edward is finally playing a match against other women in public.

Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt with no head covering, sweating 19-year-old Edward is the captain of the "Challenge" soccer team which is among six teams of young women who have battled to break traditional values in Sudan and hope to form a national competitive team.

"In the beginning we had sharia (Islamic law) here and people didn't want women to play football," Edward told Reuters on Thursday.