FOR ANYONE WHO HAS FOLLOWED women's sports in Italy, Carolina Morace
has been hard to miss. Most people know her for her commentary on soccer
matches for Telemontecarlo, a private Italian television network. To others
she is better known as one of the country's greatest female soccer players.
But soccer fans, men and women alike, will be following Morace at a lot
more closely this season as she takes up a new position as coach Viterbese,
becoming the first woman in Europe to coach a men's professional team.
Born in Venice, Morace joined Italy's national women's team at 14 and
stayed on the squad for the next 20 years, scoring 105 goals in 150 games.
She proved even more prodigious in 15 seasons in women's professional play
as she scored 478 goals and led her teams to 12 league championships.
While still playng she earned a law degree, and only quit professional
soccer after the 1997 season. She was the female soccer equivalent of American
basketball great Michael Jordan, but no one seemed to care. Italy lives
and dies for soccer but only men's soccer. For most fans Morace had all
the right stuff, but was of the wrong gender. "So I didn't make the millions
that men do, " she shrugs. "But I've always felt very lucky to be able
to do what I did."
Morace's accomplishments were more a matter of ability than luck. She
had been plalnning to coach a men's amateur squad this season when, in
June, a call came from Luciano Gaucci, owner of Viterbese, a team from
Viterbo, 80 km northwest of Rome, with the unexpected job offer. Morace
accepted, and chose another woman, Betty Bavagnoli, as her assistant coach.
The two have played together and known each other for 15 years.
Morace's appointment has been controversial. Some fans predict Gaucci
and Morace, two strong-willed individuals, will clash. Others don't believe
that a woman's palce is on the men's bench. "She was all right as a television
commentator," says Francesco Petracone, an engineering student from Naples,
"but there's no way she'll make it as coach of a men's team. "[Male coaches]
have enough problems handling difficulties with players. Imagine a woman."
But Massimiliano Valente, a doctoral student in history and avid soccer
fan, disagrees. "It doesn't matter that the public has always seen this
sport dominated by men," he says. "The most important thing in football
is a calm clubhouse." Maintaining that calm could prove difficult, however.
"A locker room is a tough place," Valente points out. "It's not exactly
loaded with gentlemen."
Morace is unfazed by the prospect of managing a squad of unruly men.
"I'm not going to try to show that I can be as mean as the meanest man,"
she says, noting that there is a big difference between an authoritarian
coach and one with natural authority.
Giorgio Bottaro, press officer for first division team Parma, thinks
Morace could be right for the job. "What's the difference between Morace
and [former Milan and national team coach] Arrigo Sacchi ?" he asks. "Sacchi,
with all due respect, was not great player. Morace was."
Because of the British presence in Genoa in the 1890s when professional
soccer started in Italy, Italians use the English word Mister to refer
to the coach. Viterbese players will have to expand their vocabulary. -
By
Greg Burke/Rome