Martina Rosucci
At the World Cup cheer us on!
by Cesare Barbieri
Two exams to go for graduating in Sports Science, Martina Rosucci, 27 years old, from Turin and midfielder for Juventus and the Italian national team (has played 35 games for Italy) talks about the upcoming summer. Italy has qualified for the World Cup, which will be held in France, and the girls know that from June 7th, when the opening match between France and South Korea will be kicked off, all football fans will be watching them.
- Martina, back in the World Cup…
Last time Italy qualified was in 1999 in Canada. I was seven at the time and would never have imagined that one day I would have played for Italy. - In France…
In the elimination round we will be playing against, in the following order, Jamaica, Australia and Brazil. The top two teams of each group and the four best third placed teams of the six groups will go on to the next round. - Prediction…
No, let’s leave predictions out of this. Brazil is a very strong team and we aim at doing well because women’s football in Italy is becoming very popular. At stake there is also the Olympics in Tokyo and Europe has three places. An ambitious objective. - Professional football teams for the last two years have their own women’s team. How important is this?
It’s important because we have always been taught that “you are what you do every day you train”. We now have infrastructures giving us better training facilities and medical staff who know how to deal with injuries. It’s completely different to the past. - With Jueventus, Milan, Fiorentina and Rome having their own teams has drawn a lot of attention…
Sure, now there’s popularity. A Juventus fan who didn’t follow women’s football is now interested in how we do and watches our games on TV. For us that’s important. - Where can we improve to close the gap there is with the best national teams?
There are teams that are athletically better prepared whereas, technically speaking, there isn’t a marked difference. Over the last two seasons the quality of training has allowed us to grow and improve. If we had had this kind of organisation ten years ago, we would be amongst the top national teams………Everyone should follow us because at the World Cup we will providing excitement and memorable moments.
And what a celebrity endorsement
Martina Rosucci has been selected by Panini and Intesa San Paolo as the face for launching the tour that during March at weekends has visited 30 Italian cities.
