England ´the most important´ place for women´s football

England is “the most important” place for women’s football, according to new London City Lionesses coach Carolina Morace.

After time out from the game following a short stint at Lazio, former Italy, Milan and Canada coach Morace joined London City in July.

The Lionesses play in the Women’s Championship, the second tier of women’s football in England.

And though London City compete in the second tier, Morace believes England is the place to be when it comes to the women’s game.

“Women’s football, the best women’s football, the most important women’s football is here is in England,” Morace told Stats Perform.

“The project that they did to develop women’s football is amazing and was global and you can see the result [England] won the European Championship and they [finished] second in the World Cup.

“That was the first motivation and why I want to be here.”

Southampton and Blackburn Rovers were the only teams to win on the opening weekend, with plenty of draws to go around the #BarclaysWC

On Sunday, we host the Hornets

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— London City Lionesses (@LC_Lionesses) August 28, 2023

Morace scored over 100 goals in her international career, and coached the Italian national team for five years, but she believes there are notable differences now between the game in England and her homeland.

“I think that here the level is higher than in Italy, the players are more ready to play,” she said.

“Also, physically, all of them are of some strength. In Italy, you have to build up the player instead. I think that is the culture in England, also because they used to playing the sport at school, that is something that [in Italy], we don’t do.

“That made them become more alert, they want to learn and you can see that immediately. They ask many, many questions, much more than Italian players.”

London City are an entirely independent professional women’s club, after their split from Millwall in 2019.

“I think that to be the only independent club is something that is special, it is a young club and the ambition is very high,” Morace added.

“That is also one of the motivators that caused me to choose this team, and it would be amazing to achieve something.

“We will try, we want to try, and the players are working hard to achieve something important.

“We want to do our best and, of course, the aim is to win something. We recruited some very good players, the young players that we have are the players that we chose.”