Catarina Macario intends to look like ‘fire’ as she signs for Olympique Lyonnais

Today, Catarina Macario, the hottest prospect in U.S. women’s football, signed her first professional contract with seven-time Champions League winners Olympique Lyonnais the two-and-a-half year contract.

On Jan. 8, the 21-year-old announced she would cancel her senior season at Stanford University to begin her senior career, signing for Lyon four days later. She will follow in the footsteps of Hope Solo, Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan in becoming the eighth player from the United States to represent the major French and European champions.

At her announcement she said you had to “live under a rock” without knowing the fame of Olympique Lyonnais in the world. “Of course I knew about it. Every woman who plays football, tries to want to play for OL because it’s the best team and the best club in the world. When they contacted me, I could not believe it. The fact that I am here makes me so happy “.

Macario won the opportunity to continue playing for her college or enter the NWSL draft and move to Europe due to uncertainty over whether Covid’s restrictions in the United States will affect the world. -current season. “I just wanted to play regularly,” she admits, “especially ahead of the Olympics”.

“I’m just out of college and I’m just looking for a new adventure. My favorite thing is just to experience a new culture and learn from the best in the world. I know I will have everything in facilities UL, all the resources I can get to be the best player I can be. Spending two and a half years there will take me to the next level – I hope so! “

Voted Player of the Match Last Friday in her first full start for the U.S. national team in a 6-0 win over Colombia in which she scored her first goal, Macario won rave reviews especially from her teammates Rapinoe team. “A cat is a different kind of player than I think we ever were. She’s a different ‘9’. She falls in a little more, playing more like ‘ 9 ‘deceptive, obviously she’s creative, obviously she can score goals I saw a few of her favorite things from college and just the kind of goals that she’ s scoring, I just think physically, to she’s already ready to be at this stage, which is a big leap for many people to go from college to this stage and be able to compete physically, you saw that she can keep up. up, she’s fast, she’s fast, she thinks fast “.

“I think she’s going to be one of those fun players that you love to see. Someone who’s going to inspire the fans, someone who’s going to come up with something creative. or nutmeg or she’s going to do some chip.I think we already see that in practice and that couple, she looks like a really good, eager and hungry baby. on the field she is still finding comfort but she is going to be on fire and we will see all that “.

Macario was born in São Luis, in the small state of Maranhão, northern Brazil in October 1999. She started playing at the age of four but without any girls ‘clubs she always played with boys’ teams until the age of 12 when whose family decided to emigrate to San Diego, California. At that stage Macario did not speak English but was recorded speaking in Portugal about her desire to play for the United States Women ‘s National Team.

“I came here because the United States is the land of opportunity,” she said Friday after her goal achievement for the national team. “It was just a little girl’s dream when I was ten or so. that and the fact that it happened today – you know I have a lot of wishes – but I certainly say that two of them have come true today. I don’t do that. ‘I have the words to say how amazing this stage was, but yeah, I’m definitely living the American dream! “

Macario was given two ball games by the squad after the game to win her first captain and to score the first goal. They go to the people she sent on the path to fulfilling her purposes. “The balls go to my parents, this would not have been possible without them from the beginning. Even when I was four years old and my father let me play football because it was definitely a big decision when you let your daughter play football in a world where there are men ”.

Macario aims to help Lyon retain the Champions League and become the fourth female football player in the United States in history after Ali Krieger, Gina Lewandowski and Morgan, won the tournament. Competition for a starting place among Lyon’s full-star squad will be tough against established forwards as France’s leading goalkeeper Eugénie Le Sommer, England international Nikita Parris and Jodie Taylor and Ada Ballon d’Or 2018 winner back in training after a year out of the game after a serious injury.

It seems that Macario has already formed an alliance in Hegeberg, receiving a phone call from Norway a few weeks before she signed it. “She was telling me about Lyon and we were just talking about how we want to be a really strong duo and take the team to a new level. I think we’re both just on excited to play together. She said she was very happy to play with a very clever player, which I was like ‘oh wow, thank you!’

Macario who one day hopes to return to the United States to play in the NWSL hopes in five years’ time that people will look back on his move to Lyon as the real moment of his older career. “The training environment in which I will be with the best players in the world. I just watch that every day. By doing that, I hope to be a great player of this. which a lot of people expect me to be.it is very thankful for all the compliments and things like that but at the same time I have still played a professional game so I really hope I can I just won my sight in Lyon and in the national team so I’m ‘just excited to start “.