“Cioè, now do women pay them for football fun? ». Amelio, Aldo, Remediotti and Del Tacca cannot find peace. It is summer, we are in Pineta. The news of the Italian championship sponsored by the Municipality does not really go down to the old detectives of the BarLume, especially as Alice Martelli plays in the team, the girlfriend of their “boss” (the bartender Massimo), a woman who is also the assistant superintendent: a with this position, they say, she can’t go and play all shaken and be a midfielder! When Marco Malvaldi wrote this story for Sellerio entitled Women with balls it was 2016: women’s football was not yet professional (Serie A has been from this year) and that on the beach was followed by clubs, other than Federcalcio. But today, and precisely in Pisa, Malvaldi’s hometown, the first women’s national beach soccer team is training, born last October at the behest of the FIGC (for now amateur level).
Women’s beach soccer, from Tirrenia to Bali
A team that we will see play in Catania – from 29 August to 4 September against England and the Czech Republic – the qualification to World Beach Games 2023 in Bali (the final phase for the European Championships will be in Cagliari from 8 to 12 September).
The federal center for Olympic training in Tirrenia, exactly 14 kilometers from Pisa, hosts the only Italian indoor beach soccer field: this is where the twelve girls of the national team train three days a month (from March to October) in one sport born in the mid-nineties on the beaches of Copacabana between an overturned and the other. You know what it means to dribble and roll the ball on an uneven surface like sand? Almost impossible. Better to keep it as much as possible in the air, and away with the stunts.
Sandy Iannella, the captain
“I was six when I started in football, after many sports tried, my grandmother accompanied me to my first training session because she understood everything »says Sandy Iannella, 35, captain of the beach soccer national team, midfielder in summer with Terracina and in winter with Pontedera. «I train girls under 15, I’d like to become a coach one day. I collaborate with my husband who is a physiotherapist, I am graduating in Sports Science and I train every night »adds Sandy, former captain of the Italian women’s football team for fourteen years, with a childhood marked by the myths of Davids, Weah and Nedved.
“Soccer is my life. Beach soccer, however, is just another sport, it’s pure fun. For someone like me who loves sea, sun and music, I would say perfection ». Yes, of course: all over the world every game has a musical background. The compilation is varied, there is also room for summer hits. «I love when they put Freed f rom desire but only because I am a Milan fan. I started in 2016 and I remember that I suffered a lot from the sand. You fill your feet with blisters but then they become callouses and you run with a smileHe adds.
Women’s beach soccer, rules and challenges
Divided apart, in fact he runs barefoot in a sand field 40 meters x 30, five against five with the changes that are however unlimited and therefore they all alternate. Each half lasts twelve minutes flat (they arrive at 17 in general) and a draw after three halves is excluded (you get to penalties). “I hope this sport ends at the Olympics. Until a couple of years ago, those who got pregnant were fired, now they receive a monthly contribution. Megan Rapinoe takes her little girl to the retreats of the US national team. We are light years behind but never say never »concludes Sandy.
Women and men, same training
A bit of optimism, however, is here. Just born, our national team made its debut in the first phase of the European championship in Nazaré, Portugal, beating the strongest in charge, England and Spain. «It’s a strong team. If you think that 80 percent of the games in the world are played outdoors and at any time, from 9 to 21, you need a lot of stamina to run at 2pm with 40 degrees»Explains Emiliano Del Duca, head of the national beach soccer teams for both men and women.
The beach soccer players (Photo by Jose Manuel Alvarez / BSWW)
“My approach to women is no different. We have only adapted the workload of some exercises. That’s the reason why I decided to take both teams to the same hotel in Portugal and have them play hours apart. We will do the same in Catania. Women believe it, they are hard workers. Athletic moms? My wife manages two daughters and she has never stopped working, why shouldn’t she be a footballer? ” adds Del Duca, who won the European Championships with the men’s national team (in 2018) and second place at the World Cup (in 2019).
Why is women’s beach soccer special?
In the meantime, ten years have passed since the video of Pes, the Club Dogo song which, to the rhythm of “I’m away from stress, smoke a bit and then play Pes”, made soccer players and girls in bikinis parade on the beach.
Claudia Saggion in action (Photo by Jose Manuel Alvarez / BSWW)
«I have been playing football since the age of four, but I discovered beach soccer by chance four years ago. It is a concentrated sport, the competitions last a maximum of five days and in the end very strong bonds are created. I would like one day to work with foreign players, to help them »says Claudia Saggion, 24, graduated in Linguistic Mediation, active in the Cittadella in Padua in winter and in Pavia Beach in the summer.
Music reminds everyone: you are here to have fun
“The hardest thing is to stay focused. It takes a lot of grit, the physical effort is great but in the end it all pays off. Music helps you to disconnect even ten seconds and think “ok, calm down, you’re here to have fun”. This should be the case in any sport»Continues Claudia, role of central, blonde ponytail, in love with a boy. “Only in Russia, where they have indoor facilities, and in Brazil they play all year round. When we beat England we realized that the first win against Spain was no accident. An immense emotion ». And then, as the ritual dictates, at the end of the game all in the water: the volume of the reggaeton increases, the ball rests in a ditch of sand and the sun melts, everything becomes pure freedom!
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