The rise of Alessia Russo: a tale of talent, training and a moment seized

The Guardian

3 days ago

Above all, she remembers the beach. She would wake every morning to a view of the sea, spend her days splashing in the surf, playing football on the sand with her brothers. They would talk into the night, eating and drinking, the waves crashing below them. These are her earliest and most treasured memories: Nettuno, the coastal town an hour south of Rome, where her nonna still lives and which Alessia Russo still describes as her favourite place in the world.
The story goes – and so fondly is this story recounted in the Russo family that it has long since passed into lore – that one day Alfonso was up from Sicily, visiting Rome with a friend, when he saw a girl stepping on to a train at the railway station. No, not just a girl. The girl. Two fairly major issues: he didn't know her, and it wasn't his train. But Alfonso was a true romantic, the train was about to leave the station, and above all he knew that some moments in life just need to be seized.
Turns out she was an English girl called Patricia, visiting Italy on a school trip. Problem number three: he didn't speak English. But a fellow passenger was able to translate for them, the pair got talking, and after a fashion they fell in love. After another fashion, and they ended up getting married. Seven decades later, their granddaughter will play for England against Italy for a place in a European Championship final.
We are, in large part, who we once were: our bloodlines and our stories, stones carried along in the river. Perhaps this is even more apparent in women's football, a sport in thrall to the journey, a collective inheritance passed down from the pioneers and the dreamers who built it in the shadows, to the ballers and the icons who play it today. Russo's career has been built on her own talent, her own hard work, her own dedication and ambition. But it has also been shaped, irrevocably so, by forces wildly out of her control, by decisions taken before she even existed.
So Alfonso moved to London in the 1950s, where he fell in love with the Busby Babes and established a lifelong passion for Manchester United. His son Mario played non-league, coached local kids, reared his two sons Giorgio and Luca in his own footballing obsession. And so by the time Alessia came into the world, in a sense her footballing life had already been built around her: endless games in the back garden, football on the television, blue box-fresh Azzurri shirts to wear for major tournaments. Indeed, Mario still supports Italy in men's football. But come Tuesday night, he will be a Lioness.
Of course Alessia sounds English, wears the England No 23 shirt, plays with English brawn and guts. But sometimes when she gets animated, you see her hands flailing and gesturing with a quality that can only be described as 'you know, quite Italian'. And as much as Tuesday night's game in Geneva is a job to be done, it will surely also stir certain memories and emotions, the multivalent loyalties of those she loves, of those who came before her. Parents Mario and Carol. Grandparents Alfonso and Patricia. Uncle Bob and aunt Teresa, who died before she was born but after whom she takes one of her middle names.
For all this, after the drama of Thursday night in Zurich, the chaotic penalty shootout against Sweden in which Russo later admitted she briefly lost track of the score, England will be deeply grateful for a simpler game in Geneva. Russo was slightly annoyed with her performance on Thursday, bleakly aware that had she taken one of the chances that had fallen to her in extra time, there would have been no need for penalties.
But it was scarcely her fault that she was exhausted by that point, having spent more than 90 minutes grappling and chasing, forced to wait until the 93rd minute for her first attempt on goal. It was a measure of her patience and work ethic that she was still able to contribute in other ways: holding the ball up, running the channels, leading the press. But England's job against Italy will be to get service to their most potent goal threat, to surround her with bodies and runners, to prevent her being isolated against a team that will have no issue defending for long periods.
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Italy are not to be underestimated, even if it remains hard to gauge their true level. Norway were truly abject against them in the quarter-finals, but Italy also held Spain to their lowest expected goals of the tournament in a slightly harsh 3-1 defeat. The speed and the precision of their counterattacking suggests a strong degree of tactical drilling, with Arianna Caruso and Sofia Cantore the perfect foils for the great Cristiana Girelli, who at the age of 35 remains as devastatingly elusive as ever, still arguably one of the top six or eight pure centre-forwards on the planet.
Italy 1-5 England, 27 Feb 2024, Algeciras
The Lionesses started preparations for the Euro 2025 qualifiers perfectly, with a dominant win over Italy in south-west Spain. Lotte Wubben-Moy gave England the lead inside the first minute and Lauren Hemp scored twice to put England 3-0 ahead after 34 minutes. Le Azzurre got one back just before half-time through Michela Cambiaghi, but England cemented their dominance with second-half goals from Ella Toone and Rachel Daly to round off an impressive performance.
England 2-1 Italy, 19 Feb 2023, Coventry
England made it two out of two wins in the Arnold Clark Cup, thanks to two Daly headers either side of Sofia Cantore's 62nd-minute equaliser. Italy could not contain Daly, who in addition to her goals, hit the crossbar just before half-time. The Lionesses broke the attendance record for a sporting event at the CBS Arena, drawing a crowd of 32,128.
England 1-1 Italy, 7 April 2017, Stoke
England were held to a frustrating draw in their penultimate home match before Euro 2017. Italy scored with their only attempt on goal, which came from Valentina Cernoia minutes after Jodie Taylor opened the scoring in the 70th minute. The Lionesses dominated Mark Sampson's 50th match in charge, with a whopping 23 shots to Italy's six. Eze Obasi
Russo, too, is beginning to enter that conversation, even if she has been forced to wait for the recognition her talent deserves. And of course there are parallels here too with her upbringing, the way her brothers would make her go in goal in the garden, the way she was forced to leave Chelsea in search of regular football, the way she remained second choice to Ellen White at the last Euros, the way she remains weirdly underrated by a lot of non-Arsenal fans, despite being probably two wins from being a very decent Ballon d'Or shout.
Alfonso died a few years ago, before Alessia's career really began to take off. He had Alzheimer's disease, but even as his faculties began to desert him this lifelong football fanatic could still remember the teams he played for as a teenager. And this of course is the eternal power of football: its ability to cut across generations and borders, its universality, its enduring ability to teach us basic lessons about life. The train is leaving the station. Nobody knows what happens next. But some moments in life just need to be seized.