First & Records

In the summer of 1932, several young women from Milan were spending their vacation near Livorno. As die-hard football fans, they began playing football for fun on a small field near the beach. What started as a simple vacation pastime gradually gave rise to a bold idea: to found the first women’s football club in Italy.

She was born in California, wears a pink headband, is a striker and celebrates her goals by making the gesture of drinking tea. And no, it’s not Alex Morgan. Her name is Melanie Bárcenas and from a very young age she has begun to break records and set new milestones in women’s football. 

As the first country with a fully professional women’s football league, the United States is no stranger to attracting top talent from abroad. With the development of women’s football overseas, the landscape has changed as other leagues have emerged as attractive destinations for top talents. Today, the narrative often goes the other way, as many top talents from the NWSL have left for European leagues in recent seasons. 

Major international tournaments and sticker albums have always gone hand in hand. What started as a school breaks fun, one that plenty of adults still enjoy, has, in recent years, become not only part of the atmosphere surrounding football's biggest competitions but also a thriving business, with collectors hoping to uncover the rarest stickers or trading cards. But what about women's football?

Real Sociedad continues to reap the rewards after the last major investment made by the club at the beginning of the 25/26 season. Arturo Ruiz’s team has qualified for the UEFA Women's Champions League qualifiers and has managed to finish the Liga F season in third place, ahead of Atlético de Madrid and only behind Real Madrid and FC Barcelona Femení.

Swedish rising star Felicia Schröder has put an end to the speculation and is leaving Häcken, the Women’s UEFA Europa Cup champion, to join Real Madrid in the Spanish women’s league. Chelsea and Manchester City were both interested in signing her, but she’s ultimately heading to Liga F. Why is this a good move? 

On March 28th 2026, the Denver Summit played in the Mile High City for the first time ever in front of a record-breaking 63,004 fans, making it the largest stand-alone women’s soccer game in US history. A little under 13 years earlier, the NWSL’s first ever game brought together 6,784 fans to watch FC Kansas City take on the Portland Thorns. Today, despite being one of the only leagues with independent clubs that cannot build on the success of male counterparts, the NWSL boasts the highest average attendance of any top-division women’s football league in the world. This feat wasn’t achieved overnight, however. How did the league get to this point?