Italy a land of opportunity as Juventus add weight to Women’s Serie A

As major clubs such as Paris St-Germain, Barcelona and Manchester City have added women’s teams to their portfolios, the take-up in Italy of the women’s game by clubs with global profiles has been slower. Instead the women’s leagues have consisted of independent teams and sister sides of smaller clubs.

But that is changing. Italy is starting to catch up: the independent ACF Firenze were taken over by Fiorentina in 2015 and this year the most successful side in Italian football, Juventus, have entered the fray – with their purchase of Cuneo putting them straight into Serie A.

Now that Italian football is beginning to compete with the top European leagues it is also starting to offer a viable outlet for WSL players looking to test themselves abroad.

Italian women’s football is no stranger to imports. In 1971 Sue Lopez became the first Englishwoman to play semi-professional football overseas, in Italy, before helping to create the first official England women’s team on her return.

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Lopez was followed by others, such as Rose Reilly and Edna Neillis who, as teenagers, defied the Scottish FA’s ban on women’s football by signing for, and winning the league with, Stade de Reims in France before both were picked up by AC Milan in 1973. In Milan, the Scottish pair played in front of 20,000 fans and won the league. Reilly won another title with Milan, as well as six other Scudetti titles and four Italian Cups for another eight teams over 20 years. She even became an adopted Italian and is celebrated as Scotland’s only World Cup winner, having scored in Italy’s 3-1 win over Germany in the 1984 final.

Now more are following. The former Manchester City defender Emma Lipman plays for the only Italian side to have reached a Champions League semi-final, Verona. The Scot Lana Clelland is currently topscorer in Serie A with third-placed Tavagnacco. She has 79 goals from 67 games since moving to Italy in 2014, initially to ASD Pink Bari.

The former Liverpool midfielder Katie Zelem, a product of Manchester United’s Centre of Excellence, is at Juventus, who are top of Serie A after 10 straight wins in their first season. The striker Ellie Brazil — daughter of Gary Brazil who oversaw Nottingham Forest’s FA Cup third-round win over Arsenal — joined Fiorentina in August and, like many now looking to play beyond the WSL, was attracted by the technical emphasis in Italy. “The Italian game is a lot more technical but a lot less physical,” she says. “I’m still young, I enjoy the physical games – like those against Man City. They’re the ones you thrive off. The technical game really isn’t my strong point but that’s why I’m out here.”

The 19-year-old can see the effects of increasing interest in women’s football in the country: “Here Brescia, Juventus and Fiorentina are the big three. This year we [Fiorentina] haven’t done the best against what people class as the lower-quality teams because they’ve improved.

“They’ve actually come into this year with fight and the league has improved. Fiorentina can’t just run away with all the glory like they did last year. It’s more fun.”

Birmingham City’s 22-year-old defender Paige Williams, who played in Italy between 2015 and 2017, winning the title with Brescia before coming home after struggling to get paid at Verona, agrees: “The Italians are really technical so that’s the first thing I noticed when I went over. Everyone could play.

“When I went I had never played a 3-5-2 formation and the coach, Milena Bertolini, who is now the national team coach, taught me to play 3-5-2 despite not speaking a word of English.”

With the WSL developing at speed and a fully professional top tier and semi-professional second tier being introduced next season, it would be easy to think that staying put makes sense. Ellie Brazil was nominated for the FA’s Young Player of the Year award thanks to her performances at Birmingham but the move away felt right: “Mark Skinner was giving me unbelievable opportunities, like playing at Wembley. I’ll always be grateful for that but I am still quite young and I didn’t want to be stuck in England without having experienced different places.”

Ireland’s Lois Roche, 24, who spent four years at Reading (which included promotion to WSL1) and an unchallenging season at Aland United in Finland, has joined the Serie B leaders, Florentia, in the January transfer window, searching for a challenge off the pitch as well as on it: “While playing football full-time I would train, go to bed, chill in bed and go back to training,” she says. “While I’m in a privileged position, I don’t have to go to work, I train, I’d like to see the world and get the chance to explore. I like to challenge myself outside football. I like to stimulate my brain.”

Williams secured her place in the WSL1 side Birmingham after her stint in southern Europe and both Roche and Brazil see their long-term futures back in the WSL.

The trickle of top talent to Italy is growing as more and more see it as an opportunity to develop a different side to their play. As the WSL develops and becomes more professional, more players are bought rather than brought through. While that may close the door to some young talent, it also makes the opportunity to get experience and game time abroad increasingly attractive.

Talking points

• It has been widely reported that the former Manchester United defender Phil Neville is in the running for the Lionesses’ top job. Neville has taken charge of one Salford City game and has had spells as an assistant manager at United and Valencia.

• Manchester City and Arsenal will play each other in the Continental Cup final after seeing off Chelsea and Reading respectively at the weekend. The City recruit Nadia Nadim scored the only goal in the 18th minute to put the two-time winners into the final at Chelsea’s expense while at Adams Park Arsenal came from 2-1 down against Reading to win 3-2 with Jordan Nobbs scoring the winner in the 82nd minute after Vivienne Miedema’s equaliser.

• The Birmingham City goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger confirmed on Twitter that she is back training after undergoing surgery for thyroid cancer last month. She said: “The operation went really well and I’m on the road to recovery. I’ve started rehabilitation and a few days ago I got back on the training ground. I am really happy to be back between the sticks and training with my team.”

• The FA has announced the Lionesses 30-player squad for a 10-day training camp in La Manga before the She Believes Cup in March. Chelsea’s Gilly Flaherty and Drew Spence, and Houston Dash’s Rachel Daly have been called up to the squad. It is the first call up for Spence since she accused the former manager Mark Sampson of making racist comments.

• Australia’s Sam Kerr, currently on loan at Perth Glory in the NWSL off-season, was named W-League Player of the Month for December. Kerr continued her amazing form for club and country with a hat-trick in Perth’s 3-3 draw against Newcastle Jets and also scored the winner against Western Sydney.