Louise Quinn revelling in road less travelled
Louise Quinn has pursued her football dream all over Europe – now based in Italy, she is energised by the prospect of glory with Fiorentina ... and Ireland
FLORENCE in February. It’s supposed to be a good time to visit. The city can be seen in all its stunning beauty without the crazy crowds. There are still queues into the Uffizi and Galleria dell’Accademia, where David stands, but they aren’t quite as long. Most importantly, there are fewer wide-eyed tourists to avoid in the streets.
But February has been no different than any other month since Louise Quinn relocated to the city last summer to play for Fiorentina.
The global pandemic means there have been little or no visitors and most of the tourist hotspots have been closed. The Ireland defender has been free to explore in relative peace and quiet.
She has been able to take a gentle stroll along the Arno, cycle to Piazza del Duomo and scale the steps to Piazzale Michelangelo for sunset, all without the bustle of sightseers. ‘I don’t know Florence any other way,’ Quinn pointed out earlier this week.
‘Talking to some of the girls, they find it very strange that Florence is this quiet and they tell me how busy it does get. But it means I have been able to see the city in another way. It would be nice to see it the other way, too. But even just walking around the city, you appreciate the beauty of the place.’
Quinn lives by herself in an apartment close to the city centre and in more normal times, she would probably be doing plenty of entertaining, with family and friends availing of the fact that she’s residing in one of the world’s most stunning cities.
‘My family have always been great supporters of mine and have come to watch me wherever I have played. It is a little strange that here I am, living in the most beautiful place I have ever been, and they aren’t able to come and visit because of the Covid situation.
‘That has been tough, but I have grown a lot from the experience. And they have been able to see the games on the internet.’
During her time with Arsenal, she was a regular visitor back home as she only lived 20 minutes from Luton Airport. But the pandemic means that’s no longer possible. The players had a couple of days off last week because of the international break and she remained in Tuscany, practising her Italian which she says is coming along slowly. ‘Good days and bad days. Better at understanding than speaking.’
Quinn was back in Blessington for a few days at Christmas. ‘It was a lockdown Christmas, strangest Christmas ever, because I spent most of it up in my room, self-isolating. But it was nice to get home and see everyone.’
Part of the reason for joining Fiorentina was to get out of her comfort zone. When Quinn was surprisingly released by Arsenal last June, there were a couple of other offers on the table. But the idea of Italy intrigued her. It was a chance to immerse herself in another footballing culture. And she has thrived. Of course, a few things took a bit of getting used to, especially how easily attackers can win their frees, but the Wicklow native has developed into the same defensive rock for Fiorentina that she is for Ireland.
And she has proven to be a threat from set-pieces at the other end.
‘Obviously, they play a different style in Italy.
Strikers are very clever over here and it’s something I have had to learn
and adapt to, read their body language and movement. I have had to become much more accurate and more precise in my timing of the tackle, because they will go down with the slightest touch,’ she says, dusting off one of the oldest stereotypes in football.
‘Yeah, I know it is cliched and what everyone says about Italian football. But it’s what I have experienced. And it is not just in Italy. It is part and parcel of the game now. You see it in every Premier League match.
‘I am a massive Liverpool fan but I can recognise that Mo Salah is bad for it.
Everyone does it. It is not something I like to see, but it just seems part of the game now.’ All of
Quinn’s defensive nous will be needed this Wednesday as Fiorentina travel to face Manchester City in the last 16 of the Champions League. Like their male counterparts, City have been on a winning run, eight consecutive victories and counting, with the likes of Chloe Kelly, Caroline Weir and Lucy Bronze in a rich vein of form. She’s no stranger to European football’s biggest stage. A sign of her remarkable career is that Fiorentina will be the fourth club that she will represent in the Champions League, following Peamount United, Eskilstuna and Arsenal. Given that she was playing in the WSL last season, and Ireland team-mate
Megan Campbell is in the City squad, Quinn will be able to fill in the dressing room on what to expect this week.
‘Manchester City are one of the best teams in Europe, as you would expect to play at this stage of the Champions League. I know a few of their players well, but they would have seen plenty of City too.
‘They would have seen their games on television. We know the task facing us, but these are the sort of challenges you want.’
Both Quinn and Campbell are two of the Ireland players who are currently studying for their UEFA B badges together. On a recent post on social media, the Zoom call was shown to be full of potential female coaches and also included Katie McCabe, Niamh Fahey and Rueshua Littlejohn, conveying a sense that the current Ireland team are determined to give back to the game even after they hang up the boots.
Quinn isn’t exactly sure about her future direction. ‘I don’t know if I want to go into coaching,’ the 30year-old explains. ‘But having UEFA qualifications on your CV will be a good thing to have if you want to work in sport once the football is over. And I am sure the other girls think the same thing.
‘We all want to grow the women’s game, That is what we are striving to do as players and maybe it is something we could do when we eventually retire.
‘If the game is going to continue to develop and grow, things like this, more girls getting involved in coaching is important.’
Given that Quinn’s illustrious football career began with Blessington Boys under-6s, as there was no girls’ team, she knows how important it is that the women’s game grows on the foundations that have been set in this country. And in that regard, Vera Pauw remaining at the helm for the 2023 World Cup qualifiers was also important.
‘It’s great that Vera is staying on, it has given everyone a boost, because we need to have that consistency there with the management team. There has been chopping and changing between campaigns before and we even started the last campaign with a caretaker. Just to have Vera stay on gives that bit of stability,’ the 30-year-old feels.
Having promised so much, the recent Euro qualifying campaign ended in disappointment and Quinn feels that recovering from the poor results in Greece and the Ukraine won’t be easy. ‘It’s going to take time
It is an iconic shirt, some big names have worn it in the past
to get over it, I think we are going to need a few more sessions on the pitch together to get it out of our system.
‘It still hurts and might do for some time, but because we don’t meet up that often as a group, we haven’t really had time to reflect on it together. It is great that there are so many girls playing professionally now, but because we are in a few different leagues, it means we are not together as much.
‘But it was great the way the public got behind the team in the last campaign. There was so much more coverage, across the media, not just on television. And we hope to build on that momentum in the next campaign.’
Quinn, who will be 31 later this year, has played over 80 times for her country, so she has seen plenty of ups and downs. And the story of her own career is of a player who sought out opportunities in an effort to better herself. From her early days in Peamount, whom she skippered against the might of PSG in the Champions League, to seizing the chance to play in Sweden with Eskilstuna, where she saw how a small town could tap into the potential of the women’s game over the course of her four seasons there.
‘My time in Sweden was absolutely pivotal to my career and the player I became,’ Quinn says. When she joined Eskilstuna, they were in the second tier, playing in front of little more than 100 locals. Within a couple of years, they were taking on the best teams in Europe.
‘It was the most random place I could have gone to at the time. There were Swedish people who never even heard of Eskilstuna.
‘And we went from a couple of hundred people watching us in the second division to 6,000 being in the stadium, the club having to put in extra seats.’ The growth of the club was dubbed ‘the phenomenon of Eskilstuna’ by the Swedish media as the women’s team were pulling in much bigger crowds than their male counterparts. To Quinn, it seems that the entire population of 60,000 were behind the team. ‘You’d be walking down the street and everyone knew you, there were posters up everywhere about the team and the next game. We got promoted in the first season and that is when it really took off. In my third season, we came within a point of winning the league, but that got us into the Champions League.’
They only missed out by a point to Rosengard, who had Brazilian superstar Marta in their ranks.
‘But to be part of that wonderful story and growth of a club, from the second division to Champions League, it was a wonderful – there were some great memories.’
The Swedish league was also full-time professional as was Arsenal, where Quinn spent three seasons before setting off on her Italian adventure. Even though the women’s Serie A is still nominally amateur – there are plans to make it full-time professional next season – Quinn and many of her team-mates, including another ex-Gunner Janni Arnth, are full-time. ‘The Italian league is still developing. It is still known as an amateur league although there are plans to fully professionalise it by next year. But all the Italian national players play here, and they were one of the best teams in the 2019 World Cup.’
And the women’s game mirrors the men’s game in some ways, such as Juventus being the dominant force. ‘Yeah, they are very strong at the moment, they have managed to keep their team together for the last three years, so they have that consistency.’
Quinn was part of the Fiorentina side who were beaten by Juve in the Italian Super Cup final recently. Although there isn’t much integration with the men’s team yet, she says that she still gets a bit of a thrill by putting on the iconic purple shirt, made famous by the likes of Gabriel Batistuta.
‘It’s a very iconic shirt, you can see it by walking around the stadium and notice the figures who have played for them in the past,’ Quinn says.
Batistuta inspired the men’s team to plenty of glorious Champions League nights. If Quinn and her team-mates can cause a shock in Manchester next week, it will be an evening to match those occasions.