MIGHTY QUINN
Ireland great is moving out of her comfort zone with a big transfer to Fiorentina
LOUISE QUINN is taking another plunge into the unknown. At 30 years of age, one of Ireland’s most decorated footballers is taking herself from the relative comforts of the Women’s Super League in England to Fiorentina in Serie A.
‘It was one of those really scary decisions to make and just go for it,’ the defender explained. ‘Put myself out of my comfort zone to try and make myself better here. Football in Italy is known for its defending and that’s what I want to be known for. If I can put myself in that environment and succeed, it’s something else to add to my list.’
Quinn has been challenging herself ever since she started playing the game with Blessington Boys under-8s. She has never rested in the comfort zone. Back in 2013, she was skippering the Peamount United side that had just reached the last 32 of the Champions League and played the mighty Paris Saint-Germain, when the chance came to become a fulltime footballer. On Sweden’s east coast, a long way from Blessington or Peamount..
Eskilstuna United were in the second tier of Swedish women’s football at the time. When Quinn left, four seasons later, they had just missed out on a league title by a point to Rosengard, who had Brazilian superstar Martha in their ranks. They were also playing Champions League football. Having had less than 400 locals at Quinn’s home debut, the club were regularly getting more than 6,000 at Tunavallen Stadium a few years later, not bad for a city of less than 70,000 people.
Their rise, and the spike in attendance, was dubbed ‘the phenomenon of Eskilstuna’ by the Swedish media as the women’s team were pulling in bigger crowds than their male counterparts. Quinn played a part in that. She was made club captain not long after her arrival, with coach Viktor Eriksson describing her as ‘the best defender in the league.’
Quinn said that the club were integral in ensuring that the local community got behind them, while the players themselves did their bit. ‘The club kept pushing us off the pitch, they were really good at promoting it,’ she recalled last year.
‘We’d be on social media, attending events around the town, going to schools. I have been standing in thunderstorms at a shopping centre and on the street, handing out leaflets. The people in the town felt we cared about them.’
Her experience in Sweden proved to Quinn that it was possible to make a living from the growing interest in women’s football
Even though she had to start playing with boys, Quinn’s talent was apparent from an early age. Her father John was a county footballer for Wicklow and her daughter clearly inherited his genes, making her debut for Ireland under-17s as a 14-year-old. A fractured hip at 15 stalled her progress but by the time she was 17, she had won the first of her 79 caps for the senior side.
Although she struggled at times with the language, Quinn felt her spell in Sweden was seminal in her development as a footballer. ‘Sweden definitely shaped me as a player,’ she has said previously. ‘I was learning the whole time, new formations, training every day. I had given every ounce I had to the team, but I needed a new challenge. I took a chance on Notts County.’
If Eskilstuna revealed one side of women’s football, and the potential within the game if a whole community rallies around a club, it was a completely different experience in the English midlands. She had been at the club less than three months when it suddenly, and mysteriously, folded, just days before their WSL opener against Arsenal.
There had been some rumours of financial difficulty, but it still came as a shock, especially as most of the players were living in accommodation owned by a club which was now liquidated. The club’s owner Alan Hardy did not even have the courtesy to show up during the debacle.
Quinn’s talent meant that she wasn’t without a club for long. Arsenal snapped up her up and in her three seasons with the Gunners, she played 76 times, won a league cup and also the WSL title, establishing herself as one of the most accomplished centre-halves in the league. A glimpse into how consistent Quinn had been in North London is that she had the highest pass completion rate over those three years.
However, when everything stopped because of the pandemic, Arsenal confirmed that they would not be renewing Quinn’s contract. She had to look elsewhere for employment and that is how she has found a new challenge in the home of Catenaccio.
From Peamount to Sweden and now Florence, the one consistent feature of Quinn’s career has been her importance to the Ireland team. And it’s not simply for her solidity at the heart of the defence as her international tally of 11 goals testifies. Yesterday was the second time she was named women’s player of the year, her first coming in 2013, and she is now just one behind Niamh Fahey in the roll of honour. The hope is that Quinn will have a few Serie A games for her new club under her belt by the time she next links up with Vera Pauw’s Ireland squad, who are currently top of their qualifying group for Euro 2021 – which would be Ireland’s first ever major championship. There is the small matter of Germany, a superpower in the women’s game, coming to Tallaght in September, lying a point behind Ireland. It will be a challenge but as Louise Quinn has shown throughout her career, she is able to meet those type of challenges head-on.