It is not impressive - even if it is very nice and useful - that Italy's women's soccer land at the 2019 World Cup, twenty years after participating in the US 1999. It is frightening the absence of journalistic and federal memory, not one that remembers who, like Milena Bertolini today, was the coach of the National one (Sergio Vatta, a great guru) and who led her in America (Carlo Facchin, an honest trainer ).

Nobody who says that, if this time it will be France to host the World Cup, then it was Vatta to eliminate it with a stratospheric enterprise in relation to our poverty of means and the delay of mentality. It was another football Italy fruit of another social Italy. And if this time they shine Barbara Bonansea (a goal and a crossbar) or Cristiana Girelli (same) then went on the field Giorgia Brenzan, a great school goalkeeper, Antonella Carta, classy midfielder a bit 'sharp (refused to enter the last game of the group) and Patrizia Panico, now coach of a national youth team of males and then implacable bomber (two goals in three races in the States).
Twenty years ago we could not get through the group (a draw with Germany, a defeat against Brazil and a victory against Mexico). Next year we will see, even if the reason calls for realistic and not hypocritically optimistic planning.

In the triumph of a company that is authentic (the Bertolini National team has won seven games out of seven, making the last one with Belgium useless) it should be remembered that qualifying twenty years ago was more difficult than now. The World Cup was sixteen teams, now they accept twenty-four. Then there were six Europeans, this time there are eight, including France, the organizing country.

It is not my intent to chill any enthusiasm, I limit myself to objective data that, far from the excesses shown on TV, will have to act as a common thread to the French adventure. If you want to overcome the first round (and then who knows), you must consider this qualification a natural fact, even if after the bad European, of discounted or predictable there was very little.
Portugal, seen in Florence, is the historically modest national we knew (it could have ended in goleada). Belgium, which came from a convincing continental review, has returned to its usual levels. He is our sparring partner, little more.

All this, however, did not come by chance, nor because in the stands now Fabbricini and Costacurta. The merit goes, in addition to serious girls and able to go beyond their limits, Milena Bertolini, former player rough and agonistically tricky, refined coach who won championships and cups at Foroni, Brescia and also at Reggiana (big company, team normal).

Bertolini is no better than others because she is a woman, but because she is studious, nerd, passionate, rigorous, attentive, generous.
His Italy is first of all a true team, 4-3-3 from very narrow lines, a pressing high and continuous, the closure of the lines of passage when missing the possession of the ball. Good dribble, breadth and depth in the attacks when the ball is there.

The Italian national team of women's football is not just a team of women, it is a versatile team capable of attacking and defending in a block, skilled on set pieces (against Portrogallo the goals of Girelli and Salvai are descended from a corner), instructed to do everything well, with strength (yes, strength), technique, competitive profusion, speed.

Apart from Milena and her girls there are no other deserving ones to award medals. Female football has always been a gregarious football. It is discovered only when it is convenient (now everyone talks about raising, but the league is still poor and in the Champions League the gap with the big French and German teams is unbridgeable), it is exalted as a reserve card (the males are not qualified to the World of Russia), illusions are sold (the professionalism that the Italian regulations deny as status to all women's sport) rather than founded projects.

I want to say with this that this World qualification is still the product of years of undergrowth and subscale, in which the Federation has not moved a finger like the Amateur League, nobody has invested on anything and the companies, coaches and girls have done everything yourself.

Bertolini, before leaving her alone, proceeded head-on among this group of idealists of the tread.
He knew we could get far. But a World Championship conquered in less than a year, perhaps she did not even imagine it.

Giancarlo Padovan