Patrizia Panico signs for NJ Sky Blue FC

National team striker Patrizia Panico signed for New Jersey's Sky Blue FC last week.  This is an important moment for Italian women's football.  Panico, 35, has been a fixture on the national team for at least 15 years, and she has always been a top scorer in Serie A.  She has quite a few national titles and Italy Cups under her belt.  She has also participated in the Women's Champions League since its inception nearly a decade ago.  She has the experience and quality to make a significant impact in the WPS.

Panico will be the first Italian to play in the WPS.  I have always wondered why there were no Italians in the WUSA (the first attempt at an American professional women's soccer league) and last year in the WPS.  Italy's national team, while not one of the strongest, is still ranked in the top 15, well above a number of teams that boast players in the WPS, such as Mexico, Finland, Scotland and Nigeria.  While the American summer leagues, such as the W-League and WPSL, have attracted numerous internationls, only Rita Guarino has experience playing in the States.  Guarino is a former national team striker, and played with Panico not only for Le Azzurre, but also for Lazio and Torres.  She played for one season in the W-League on Maryland Pride in 1999.  She scored 6 goals in 6 games for the Pride.  She has since retired from play, but now runs a soccer school in Turin for boys and girls.

I have always wondered why there has been such little interest in Italian players for the profession league.  I think partly because in Italy, national team players usually get a nice deal to play for their clubs.  Many of them attend university, and the clubs are very flexible with training schedules so they can study as well as train.  Guarino, for example, when she played for Lazio, lived in Turin because she attended university there, but trained with a local men's team in Serie C (3rd division).  Idem while she played for Torres, a squad based on the island of Sardinia.  Since Italian women tend to stay in their league, as it is very accommodating to their exigences, they are probably overlooked by international scouts.  While some noted players have played in Serie A, such as Charmaine Hooper (Lazio) and Milena Domingez (Fiammamonza), women's Serie A also does not attract international players like other might.  This too, is certainly a mark against it.  It is considered an amateur league, but we all know that some players make a respectable living, while others practically pay to play.  

It is a very strange situation for women's soccer in Italy.  Despite being the world's "most popular sport," Italians still consider it a game for men.  Women's soccer is viewed as a novelty at best, and an utterly useless and degenerate pastime at worst.  There is a tremendous amount of local homegrown talent however, and it is unfortunate that the women's efforts to play the world's game are ridiculed and stymied by such misogynistic ideas. 

Well, I doubt Panico's move to Sky Blue will be something permanent.  The final match for the WPS is scheduled for September 26, and even if Sky Blue makes it that far, Panico will certainly head back to Italy and sign with another Italian team, as Serie A begins in October.  Who knows, at 35 she may even retire after reaching her goal to play professional football.  

I think she will fit right in with Sky Blue.  She is in top form as she is playing for the Italy Cup at the moment.  She just needs to learn to play with her new team mates.  Hopefully she will mesh as well and as quickly as Guarino did.  I will follow her performance in WPS with great interest and enthusiasm.  She will help change the world's view of Italian women's football for the better.