November 30, 2001

Italy's ancient scenery?

Mario Rimati

While reviewing UEFA Technical Report on the recent European Women's Championship held in Germany from June 23rd to July 7th, your correspondent could not help notice the following data: the oldest team out of the 8 participating nations was once again....Italy with an average age of 27.45 years.

I say once again because at USA’99, out of 16 nations, Italy was on average the oldest (it placed 9th). The 2nd oldest

player of the European finals (the first was Russia's Marina Bourakova) out of the entire group was Italy's Federica D'Astolfo (born October 27, 1966). The third oldest was England's Marieanne Spacey. The oldest goalkeeper of the 8 nations? Italy's Giorgia Brenzan (born August 21st, 1967). Italy by the way placed third in its group: 1. Denmark 2. Norway 3. Italy 4. France.

It lost its final match against France (which, ironically, was already eliminated from the event). On the other side Group A saw the following: 1. Germany 2. Sweden 3. Russia and 4. England.

The breakdown of the average age per UEFA Championship was:

Sweden 24.20

Denmark 24.45

Germany 24.50

France 25.68

Norway 25.75

England 25.85

Russia 26.30

Italy 27.45

It is interesting to note that two of three youngest teams of the group, Sweden and Germany, are the ones that made it to the final (with Germany being the winner of the event).

Italy, about time for a turn-over?