KENNESAW, Ga - From playing in the most ancient city in Europe to Kennesaw, Agata Giani took a leap of faith when she decided to come to America to play collegiate soccer.
 
4,756 miles is a long way from Milan, Italy, but she was ready to take on the next big thing for her career. In Italy, soccer is something that is done outside of school and that was something Giani wasn't interested in.
 
Giani was born in Italy but grew up in Taiwan. Then she moved back to Italy when she was 9-years-old. When she got back to Italy, she had to decide which sport she wanted to play which became difficult because she played numerous sports growing up. She decided to play soccer, but there was a small dilemma.
 
"In Italy, women's soccer wasn't that developed. Men's soccer is huge in Italy, but the women's, not so much, so I had to start playing with the boys' team," Giani said. "I played with them for four years until I was 14. Then the Inter Milan team reached out, so that's when I switched to a women's team."
 
Playing for an important club like Inter Milan, Giani learned discipline and was able to learn from the other girls who were a part of that team. That experience helped prepare her for soccer at a collegiate level.
 
"It was a privilege to be able to play on that team," said Giani. "All the girls that played were serious about playing soccer and we all were passionate about it. So coming here I realized I was more prepared than other girls that came from an American high school that never experienced this type of level of soccer."
 
Kennesaw State coach Benji Walton talked about how European players have a high IQ of spacing, tempo and movement, and that's what Giani brought to the game. She had to adapt to the speed and physicality of American soccer, but once she did, she became a catalyst for the Owls' counterattack.
 
Once she joined Inter Milan, Giani would take her soccer bag to school and then she would have to get on a bus, then on a train, and then another bus just to get to practice every day. This started to negatively affect her performance in school.
 
"That's also another reason why I thought coming here would be a great idea for me because I was struggling with that in high school. I'm here so that I could balance school and soccer," said Giani.
 
Once Giani arrived, she had to quarantine because she arrived in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
"My first month here, I was in quarantine. I didn't do anything in my first month in America," Giani said. "Benji called me every single day to check up on me, but my first month was not great."
 
Once she got out of quarantine, it took her a while to adjust to everything. It was a very different lifestyle to what she was use too. She struggled a lot with communication and how different America was from Italy, but after that first semester, she was finally able to call KSU her second home.
 
"Now, I see my teammates here as my second family. We are all really close, and they are literally all I have here, so they're the closest people to me here."
 
Being a senior on this team, Giani sees herself as a person that leads by example. She's not the loudest person on the field, but she knows when to stand up and speak and when to sit back.
 
"She does a good job of just kind of knowing her role as a vocal leader and does a good job with executing it," Walton said. "She has a good sense of when she needs to speak and when she doesn't. That's a gift. It's a good thing and I think everyone looks at her as a leader and what she does."
 
One of Giani's main goals this season is to better herself everyday as the season goes on. She wants to be a player that a freshman on the team can look up too.
 
"When I was a freshman, a lot of the seniors at the time really helped me a lot as a player and as a person. I would love to help the freshman and I would want them to see me as a person they can come to," said Giani. "I want to be proud of the way I play and just make sure I always give it my all, so that I don't have any regrets."
 
Giani is happy to see that people are starting to be more interested in women's soccer. There is more money that is being invested into women's soccer, and she's glad that little girls can play on a women's team and not have to play with boys.
 
"I didn't even have my own locker room. They put me in the referee's locker room and gave me 10 minutes to change, and then I had to get out so the referee could get in and change. I'm glad that girls don't have to do that anymore."
 
 
 
 
 
 

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