Cuschieri on a high!
Malta’s highest-profile female player Rachel Cuschieri became the first to turn professional when in 2014 she made the big move to Cyprus to join Apollon Limassol FC.
An international regular since her teens, the San Gwann academy product began her senior career with Birkirkara where she won three league titles amid an array of honours, being the club’s top scorer seven seasons running and landing Malta’s female player of the year four times.
Dream
Her dream and ambition was always a move abroad and, after a trial with FC Bayern Munich in 2011, she is now a househould name with Apollon Limassol FC ladies.
The Malta Independent sports team met up with Cuschieri during a recent visit of hers to her beloved native country and she opened up about how she sees women’s football improving on the island and her ambitions in the very near future.
Recent results
The Malta women’s national football team did fairly well in the recent FIFA World Cup European qualifying round tournament played in Albania last April.
Malta lost 1-0 to Greece, drew with eventual qualifiers Albania 0-0 in their second commitment and achieved a convincing 3-1 win in their last match against Kosovo.
Despite missing out on qualification Cuschieri looked at the brighter side of the future of women’s football in Malta.
“I am sure we put up creditable performances during this tournament. No easy games against Greece and Albania, two higher ranked teams.
“We were very united as a squad and I think that the results we got in Albania are due credit to our commitment during the tournament.
“I do think that women’s football in Malta is definitely on the rise but we need more facilities to get there. We, as females, need more of a push when compared to men’s football. Here I plead to the authorities to give more importance to women’s football in general.”
Apollon Limassol
Going into her fourth year with Apollon Limassol, 25-year-old Rachel spoke about how being a professional has transformed her football career. “I always believed that I would play abroad as a professional. It was always a dream buzzing in my mind day after day.
“This has been my first step in professional women’s football. I would love to upgrade further into my career and play in a stronger league. This has always been my dream since childhood.”
Apollon Limassol FC ladies have been the dominant force in women’s football in Cyprus for the past years, having won the women’s league and cup double for the past four season, but despite their local dominance, the ladies team from Limassol has never gone beyond the last 32 of the UEFA Women’s Champions League since 2011/12.
Cuschieri was frank about all this. “This season could have been better. We suffered a couple of mishaps – one of these being our first defeat in nearly 5 years – so we were not happy with this.
“Again we achieved our objective of winning the league but as you yourself stated doing very well in the UEFA Women’s Champions has always been our main objective.
“The club’s main objective has always been that of reaching the last 16 of the competition but on many occasions we have been so near and yet so far. This year we got knocked out again in the last 32 of the competition by Sparta Prague. We lost 3-2 away from home and drew 1-1 in Limassol.
“We were close, very close. In the first leg we even went into a 20 lead. But Sparta came back stronger to overturn the result and progress further. We are still doing our best year after year in order to reach our goal, that of reaching the last 16 in the competition.”
Football with boys
Cuschieri giggled when asked to give us a glimpse back of her first kicks of a ball! “When I was still a kid I used to watch my brothers playing football on our rooftop and obviously I used to join in. Then when I was only 5, my father enrolled me with San Gwann nursery boys.
“Here I played football with the boys until I was 14, before joining Birkirkara where I stayed until 21, before I moved on to professional football in Cyprus.”
Objectives
Our conversation continued with Rachel speaking about her future objectives, “My main objective is that of playing in a highly rated women’s league at professional level, like Germany or England. I would like to look back and say – I have played with a big women’s team – and to make more of a name for myself and reach higher heights that I am experiencing at the moment.”
Love for Malta
Rachel’s beamed smile spoke for itself when asked to speak about the Malta women’s national football team.
“Yes, my love for the national team has no limits. I was 14 when I made my debut. I would like to see the team qualifying more – now that we have been eliminated from the FIFA Women’s World Cup qualifiers, we have to sit it back for the next two years.
“So yes qualifying from the next tournament with better performances in order to face stronger teams, evaluate our real potential and gauge our real level in the international women’s football scenario is a must!
“The message I want to convey to aspiring young girls wanting to make the grade in women’s football is that if you want something so much, you work hard for it and the result will come”, was the message from Rachel to us before heading back to her second home, Cyprus!