Heroines: Carolina Morace

“Heroines” is a (future) regular feature about women who made and make outstanding achievements for women's role in sports. 

Carolina Morace: retired Italian football player, one of the best of the last century, ex-coach of the Canada and Italy women’s national football teams and: the only woman to ever coach a men’s professional team. In 1999 she coached Italian third division side Viterbese. She resigned after only two matches (one win, one loss) due to the heavy media pressure, but it’s still a milestone. She has since proven to be a highly competent coach and was especially successful with Canada. Read this article about her appointment and the reaction to it to find out more. Morace is out-spoken and blunt and has a precise understanding of the game. It’s a shame we never had a chance to see what she could actually achieve with a men’s team because too many people were too small minded.

I would call Carolina Morace a heroine. Firstly she was an outstanding football player, one of the true greats of the game: While statistics are incomplete, sources indicate she scored over 550 goals in the Italian league over 20 years. She is also a legend for her national team, scoring 105 goals in her 150 appearances since her debut when she was 14. Let that sink in for a while. 

She also distinguishes herself by her outspoken and assertive nature. She has no qualms about calling out double standards. One of my favourite quotes from her is this one, concerning her personal life: "I'd prefer to be considered a lesbian than a whore. I'm not married. I preferred to concentrate on my career. It's my business whom I go to bed with and I don't have to answer to anybody about it."

It really is unfortunate that she never had a real chance and failed due to sexist criticism before being able to prove herself. It is widely accepted when men coach women's teams or female athletes, but examples of women coaching men are rare in all sports. And therefore Morace is a heroine, because she dared to face a sexist world head on. She never got a real chance, but she dared. She took the first step. Let's hope someday another woman will follow in her footsteps and everyone will respond in a better, more supportive way. 

[Note: This is partially a crosspost from my tumblr which usually features much less serious stuff.]

Sources:  http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/letter-from-rome-morace-takes-on-the-men-1102974.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_Morace
http://www.uefa.com/womenseuro/history/season=1997/goldenplayer/index.html