Last week, the FINAL two days of games were held for all three of the JCU soccer teams – men’s 11v11, men’s futsal, and women’s! This has been such a great semester for these teams – especially because it was the last semester for the men’s 11v11 captain, Riccardo Vallese, forward Lukas Loishacker (both are graduating) and some excellent study abroad players that will unfortunately be returning to their home universities as the Fall 2017 semester comes to an end.

The first team to play on Wednesday night at Trastevere Stadium were our Lady Gladiators team that played a very difficult game against Foro Italico (including less than ideal weather conditions), and although they lost, everyone put in a great last effort for the final game of the semester!

Valeria Muzzin, captain of the Lady Gladiators soccer team said about last night’s game,

“Last night was a tough game for our team. The match ended with a score of 5-3 in favor of the Foro Italico team, being the first loss of the season for us. JCU started very well by scoring the first goal, but Foro (which this year have several new very good players) took advantage of a moment of weakness of our ladies to even the score to 1-1. However, JCU, guided by their coach Paolo Farina, successfully ended the first half of the game with another goal. The effort of the Lady Gladiators had not been enough to maintain such a score and got a few goals from Foro.  Rain and fatigue surely have contributed to the challenge of last night’s game. Despite the final score, congratulations to both teams for the hustle as well as passion, dedication, and effort. We wish the Lady Gladiators to have a great winter break!”

Men’s 11v11 played against Erasmus ESN in possibly the most challenging game of the semester… It was the last game for many of our players (all our VS students and some DS), including our team captain, and everyone was playing hard to get the 3 points and to celebrate that special night. The celebration for the last game of our captain was great, but was interrupted by the sudden goal from ESN in the last seconds.. Despite the effort we weren’t able to win, but the team showed great strength throughout this semester regardless of this last game. Congratulations again to Riccardo and Lukas on graduating and being part of the JCU men’s 11v11 team throughout their years at this university. You will be missed!!

Finally, our men’s futsal team played an away game against Link Campus University, and though they may have lost, they definitely put up a fight for their final game of the semester. A special congratulations also to our incredible 5v5 team captain and veteran student assistant, Marco Fortuna, on graduating this semester

“This semester has been good, we had many players and we’re a new team – so we didn’t expect to be able to get that high of a ranking in the league. We’re happy about this, but actually we could have done more. I hope that we are able to use the momentum from this semester to continue on next semester with a stronger team.”

Thank you to all of our wonderful players, supporters, and Athletics team members for making this such a phenomenal semester – we will see you for the Spring semester!