TAVAGNACCO, UDINE, ITALY -- Tia Nardella '10 sensed that time was slipping away to fulfill a dream of playing pro soccer overseas. She had ended her college career at Longwood in 2009, and since then, had played in co-ed and women's leagues while working as a personal trainer in Boston near her hometown.
So a few months ago she approached Steve Brdarski, the former Associate Head Women's Soccer Coach for the Lancers, who has developed a few soccer contacts in Italy.
“Tia said this was the time. She said, 'This is the only time in my life I will be able to try this,'“ Brdarski recalls.
Fast-forward to earlier this year, and after jumping through some red tape, Nardella was playing for UPC Tavagnacco in the top Italian league. “It was a long process,” Brdarski said of the paperwork needed for foreign players, especially non-Europeans, in Italy.
“I have been a personal trainer at Train Boston Sports Center since a couple days after my graduation in 2010. It was very hard to leave and take a risk on a dream when I was lucky enough to have a great job in the first place,” Nardella, a kinesiology major with a focus on exercise science, wrote in an email from Italy in early February.
Making her adventure even more meaningful was that a teammate in Italy with Nardella was
Kacie Oliver '12, another former Longwood standout. A fellow New Englander, from Portsmouth, Rhode Island, Oliver graduated after studying business administration with a concentration in finance.
“My family is from Messina, Sicily and I also was intrigued by the idea of exploring and playing the sport I love in a country where my ancestors are from,” Oliver wrote. “With the help and networking of our coach Steve Brdarski I was able to make my dream of playing professional soccer come true, and Italy was my destination. Coach Steve had a contact, Massimo Migliorini, in Italy who was able to set up tryouts with UPC Tavagnacco and Como, two teams in the Serie A league.”
Nardella and Oliver, both of whom have Italian heritage, quickly worked their way into the lineup and both scored goals in their first start for UPC Tavagnacco. Their team normally plays once a week, on Saturdays, and draws a few hundred people to the match.
Off the field they are able to experience life overseas while playing in a top European league.
They spend time going to the gym, studying Italian, cooking or hanging out with friends, according to Nardella. She said to relax the make a big cup of tea or American coffee and read or watch movies. Nardella became a dual citizen with a ceremony at the town hall earlier this year in Tavagnacco, in the northeast corner of Italy, in which local dignitaries were on hand. She used her limited Italian to thank those who had made her citizenship possible.
“We live in Tavagnacco a province of the city of Udine in the Friuli region,” according to Nardella. “The town is very small and surrounded by mountains and vineyards. Practice starts with a warm-up, stretching, and technical work, followed by agility/coordination drills, a game of possession or passing, offensive and defensive sequences, speed/power/conditioning work with our strength and conditioning coach, and finished with a team scrimmage.”
The two former Lancers had limited overseas experience. Oliver had studied in Barcelona, Spain for about six weeks in the summer of 2010 and has since been to Serbia, while Nardella had been to New Zealand, but not to Europe before last year. Nardella can certainly represent American politics well in Italy: she is from Brookline, Mass., the birthplace of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
Nardella was a midfielder at Longwood and was a captain in 2009. She started in 29 of her 49 career matches and she had six goals and three assists going into her senior season.
Oliver, a defender/midfielder, was a captain as a senior in 2001 and started all 56 of her matches in her first three seasons in Farmville. “I simply can't say enough about Kacie and what she means to this team,” head coach
Todd Dyer said in 2011.
Nardella and Oliver are not the first former Lancers to play in Italy.
Melissa Cary, who played for the Lancers from 2002-05, played several seasons in outdoor leagues there, according to Brdarski. She is a 2002 graduate of Brentsville High in Northern Virginia.
"I thought about this and dreamed about it as a kid," Cary told The Potomac News in 2007. "It's every kid's dream to play professionally in their desired sport." She is now playing Futsal, a form of indoor soccer, in Florence.
“After talking to many different futsal teams, all over Italy, I finally decided on the team that seemed like the perfect fit for me,” Cary wrote in February. “My team is called Isolotto Fondiara Calcio a 5. We are in the Serie A, which is the top division in Italy. The team is located in Florence. I live in an apartment that is less than 10 minutes walking from our field and I live with 4 other players from my team. Florence is an amazing city that is just the perfect size ... it is big enough that you can never get bored finding a new cafe to go visit, but small enough that you are able walk from one end of the city to the other without a problem, at least if you're not wearing heals.”
“I plan on coming back to play with Isolotto next season as well,” Cary added. “I believe that the upcoming season is likely to be my most fulfilling season yet in Italy for various reasons. My team is continuing to improve and we are hoping that with a few small adjustments and a few new players that we will have a shot to get into the national finals tournament next season. But the most exciting thing that will be different for me next season than any other season, not only here in Italy, but also at Longwood, is that I will finally get the opportunity to play on the same team as my youngest sister, Brenda Cary. Brenda decided to play at LU just like me and she even took over my jersey, number 17, the year after I finished playing. She graduated last spring and we are just finishing up getting her dual citizenship so she will be able to come play professional soccer with me next season.”
Nardella credits Cary for inspiring her to head overseas.
“Once I heard about Melissa Cary playing in Italy it was a thought that never left my head. I am second generation Italian, my entire father's side of the family is from Gaeta, Italy,” according to Nardella. “I had never had the opportunity to travel while I was in school and if I could, Italy would have been at the top of the list. This past year I finally decided to commit to try and make this dream come true.”
“With the help, guidance, networking and support of Brdarski he was able to finagle an 'exchange' with another Italian player (I host and set up a two-week visit for her and she will do the same for me). Steve was then able to negotiate further and make it an exchange for two people, and immediately added Kacie into the mix. It was through his two contacts that we were able to have tryouts with both Como and UPC Tavagnacco,” she adds.
Oliver scored a goal in a recent 2-1 win, according to Brdarski, who is able to follow results online. “We are so happy for the girls. It is incredible. They never played in the Big South, but they are playing in a bigger conference now,” he said.
Editor's Note: Special consultant David Driver is a Virginia native and has covered college sports in the state for more than 20 years. He has been a staff writer for newspapers in Arlington, Springfield and Harrisonburg and has contributed to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Washington Post, Stafford County Sun and The Potomac News in Woodbridge. He was also the first sports editor for the daily Baltimore Examiner. He will continue contributing special feature content to longwoodlancers.com throughout the upcoming 2012-13 academic year as well. A former Division III baseball player at Eastern Mennonite University, David can be reached at www.davidsdriver.com.
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