IFFHS STATISTICS AND NEWS OF THE WEEK 15
NATHALIA ANDREA MURILLO : A COLOMBIAN DREAM
She is one of the World Ambassadors of the Beach Soccer and also one of the Best Goalkeepers in the World ! Colombian Nathalia Andrea Murillo has already obtained the international recognition in her sport, being a Leader in Beach Soccer Goalkeeper History like Hope Solo , the four times winner of the IFFHS Award THE WORLD'S BEST WOMAN GOALKEEPER in football.
Born in Medellin, Colombia on 9 July 1993, Nathalia Murillo, known in the beach soccer world as “Naty", started football as Goalkeeper in the field and indoor before touching the sand for the first time during an invitation to beach soccer in 2015. She had so great energy and emotion that she decided to make a career !
« My city only has two sand pitches. One is private and the other public so the sport is not so popular. « It was difficult for Natalia to go to tournaments, particularly in USA and CONCACAF, her most important victory was already in 2016 with the Antioquia Beach Soccer Club in the international Tournament in Trinidad & Tobago. She was crowned there the Best Goalkeeper of the Event and MVP !
Amongst many successes early on in her career, there is one achievement that Naty is particularly proud of… “My perseverance and extra hard work led me to be the first Colombian to play an official beach soccer competition in Europe.” A dream for Natalia.
Naty played again another great international tournament in Virginia Beach in the USA in 2018 where her team obtained the fourfth place.The Beach Soccer Zeeland Club of Netherlands contacted her there to play with their team the EuroWinner Cup in Portugal, the most important Tournament in the World ! Nathalia realized her dream, but one memory in particular sticks out in her memory…
“I had never felt a thrill like when I was in the tunnel in my first official match in Europe » With the Beach Soccer Zeeland team , she joined another planet, the World Planet. She was choosen in 2018 for two years as a Global Ambassador with 20 players in total (15 men, 5 women), including the Best in the World to promote the Soccer Beach worldwide. Nathalia is again choosen in 2020 as one of the greatest Global Ambassadors for Beach Soccer World !
Nathalia Murillo is a pioneer in Colombian Beach soccer with great qualities of determination, motivation and fascination. She worked and fighted so hard to become one of the Best Players in the World and particularly the title of World Ambassador for the Beach Soccer as the first woman !
While her dream comes true, she is always able to combine modeling, marketing, sport and study Sports Training at the University. She has created her own clothes brand that she produces now. « I hope to be a great worldwide benchmark for beach soccer and women’s soccer, an example for girls in Colombia , give them the power to work hard and realize her passion ».
Nathalia continue to train hard , most time with men, so she can participate at events and tournaments worldwide and be a well known face in soccer and beach soccer .Her goal is to live from her passion.
“My next goals are to play in different countries, different leagues and year after year play at the Euro Winners Cup until my time comes to win it.”
Maybe one day, USA or Europe clubs will ask Nathalia to join them in field international competitions !
THE PICTURE OF THE PAST
Remember the first FIFA World Cup Final in 1930 in Montevideo (Uruguay) : on the picture, Hector Castro (Uruguay) scored the fourth goal for his team against Argentina and Goalkeeper Juan Botasso in the last minute. Uruguay became the first World Champion in History .
RADOMIR ANTIC RIP
Former Serbia and Atletico Madrid coach Radomir Antic has died aged 71 last week.
Antic had a varied playing career as a defender spanning 17 years in which he played for Partizan Belgrade in his home country, Fenerbahce in Turkey, Real Zaragoza in Spain before ending his career in England with Luton Town.
He coached a host of Spanish sides including Zaragoza, Real Madrid and Barcelona but is best remembered at Atletico, where he spent five years and led a team containing current coach Diego Simeone to win a La Liga and Copa del Rey double in 1996.
He also led Serbia to qualify for the 2010 World Cup, then going on to work in China. His last stint as a coach was with Chinese Super League side Hebei China Fortune Hebei Fortune in 2015.
"Today we have lost a great person and one of the architects of that magnificent golden age for Atletico. I feel very proud to have known him and shared every moment by his side" said Atletico president Enrique Cerezo.
AFRICA IFFHS LEGENDS SLAM HOMELAND COVID-19 STIGMATISATION.
Two IFFHS football legend players of African roots, Samuel Eto’o Fils of Cameroon, and Didier Drogba of the Ivory Coast have come out to stridently slam a French medic over the approach to stop the deadly Coronavirus, Covid-19, after he suggested that a new BCG vaccine could be tested in the African continent to assess its efficiency. This follows the submissions on French media outlet, LCI, by Mr. Jean Paul Mira, head of the Reanimation Unit of a Paris-based hospital and his fellow Research Director Louchi of the French National Institute for Health and Research midweek.
The football legends, and other stars, in their instagram, twitter and face book accounts, considered the suggestions to have the vaccines tested first in Africa as an insult, slamming the medical experts for having dared imagine that Africa could be used as a football playground where human beings from the continent could be used as guinea pigs in an experiment, as it were. They also described what they considered as hateful suggestions to be racist.
But then the accused have come out with a release saying their suggestions that the vaccine be tested in Africa where they posit face masks and reanimation centres are not quite in vogue, as vaccines against HIV had been tested on lions and prostitutes, had been misunderstood. They also insisted that the vaccines were being tested in Europe and Australia.