Italian footballer

Cecilia Salvai (born 2 December 1993) is an Italian footballer who plays as a defender for Serie A club Juventus and the Italy national team. She has represented Italy U19 at the 2011 UEFA Women's Under-19 Championship.

Contents

• 1 Early life
• 2 Club career
• 3 International career
  • 3.1 Under-19
  • 3.2 Under-20
  • 3.3 Senior
• 4 Controversy
• 5 International goals
• 6 Honours
• 7 References
• 8 External links

Early life

Aged 4, Salvai was affected by the Hodgkin lymphoma.

Club career

Salvai started her professional career with Canavese in 2008, and after a single season she moved to Torino, where she developed into a regular for the Turinese club. The team's website described her as "without doubt, the player with most appeal in Torino's roster." She plays primarily as a left-back, but she can move to become a centre-back when needed.

Before the start of the 2012–13 season, she moved to Swiss club Rapid Lugano, and left at the end of the season to return to Italy, as she signed with Veronese club Bardolino Verona.On 11 July 2016, ahead of the 2016–17 season, she joined ACF Brescia Femminile.

International career

Under-19

During the 2011 Championship Salvai was named on the starting XI of the opening group stage match against Russia. She did no play in the second group stage match against Switzerland, but she scored the equalizer against Belgium in an eventual 3–1 win for the azzurre. Italy reached the semi-finals unbeaten, but eventually lost 2–3 to Norway.

She was also called for the first qualifying round for the 2012 Championship, and she started all three matches as Italy advanced to the second qualifying round, where, again, she was a regular and started all three matches. Italy, however, finished second in its group and last amongst the runners-up, and therefore did not advance to the final tournament.

Under-20

Salvai was called by Italy's U-20 coach Corrado Corradini to take part in the 2012 World Cup, where she was a starter in all three group stage matches. As Italy finished last in Group B, they did not play any other match.

Senior

Salvai made her début for the senior team on 19 September 2012, as Italy faced Greece in the final qualification match before UEFA Women's Euro 2013. She started the first two group stage matches against Finland and Denmark but did not play against Sweden, as Italy advanced to the quarter-finals.

Controversy

On 5 August 2021, an image of Salvai, using her fingers to pull back her eyes while wearing a red training cone on her head, went viral after it was tweeted from the Juventus women's official team account. The tweet also included emojis that mimicked the gesture and prompted accusations of racism towards Asians from the online community. The tweet was deleted with the club issuing an apology within half an hour of the original post stating, it was "not meant to cause controversy or have any racial undertones."

International goals

Honours

Juventus

• Serie A: 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22
• Coppa Italia: 2018–19, 2021–22:
• Supercoppa Italiana: 2019, 2020–21, 2021–22

Individual

• AIC Best Women's XI: 2019

References

External links

• Cecilia Salvai – UEFA compe*ion record (archive)
• Cecilia Salvai at Soccerway