The Italian Job
by Graham HaysAbi Brighton is one of many Vanderbilt graduates who landed a job with a global industry leader—in her case, legendary Italian soccer club Juventus
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Like many of her fellow Vanderbilt graduate students, Abi Brighton found herself on a Zoom call with a potential employer earlier this year. She was one of the fortunate ones. Rather than her nervously making a case for employment, the industry leader impressed by her collegiate résumé made its case. She clicked out of the call convinced she could work for them, that they shared her values. And like most of her classmates, while leaving Nashville would be bittersweet, relocation wasn’t a dealbreaker.
Which is how Brighton ended up signing a professional contract with Juventus and moving to Turin, Italy, to play for one of the world’s most successful and recognizable soccer clubs.
Brighton recently completed her first season in Serie A Femminile, Italy’s top league. Signed midway through the Italian season after leading Vanderbilt to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, she helped Juventus win the Serie A title, the Coppa Italia domestic tournament and qualify for the UEFA Women’s Champions League. Going abroad was a historic opportunity to be part of growing the women’s game. While Juventus is one of Italy’s oldest clubs, it added a women’s team less than a decade ago. Brighton believed she was no less a finished product in her own right. Juventus was her opportunity to grow—whether competing against some of the world’s best players or simply shopping for dinner.
“I had to learn to be comfortable being super uncomfortable,” Brighton said of living and working in another country. “Even going to the grocery store, and this is super embarrassing to admit, but it took me probably two months to figure out how to buy vegetables. I’m still learning the language. I definitely could have asked for help because there are people who speak English, but I’m super stubborn and wanted to figure it out for myself.”
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From the Cumberland to the Po
It is no surprise that Brighton helped expand Vanderbilt’s penchant for preparing players for the professional game under head coach Darren Ambrose. A freshman starter on the team that won the 2020 SEC Tournament and climbed as high as the top five in the national polls, she made her 93rd collegiate start when she captained the Dores in the first Sweet 16 game in program history this past November. After the season, the midfielder was honored as a third-team All-American.
She knew she wanted to continue playing beyond her collegiate eligibility, but with the elimination of the National Women’s Soccer League college draft adding a new twist to the process, she didn’t know what pursuing those ambitions might look like. As it turned out, she was already on Juventus’ radar. A scout affiliated with the club approached her dad during last fall’s SEC Tournament in Orange Beach, Alabama, to gauge potential interest.
Generally too busy playing the game and traveling to tournaments, practices and camps to have ever developed an all-consuming fandom for any team, Brighton nonetheless recognized the name when her dad brought it up. You can no more play soccer without knowing the Juventus name than you can play baseball without knowing the New York Yankees. Founded in the 19th century, the men’s team has won 36 Italian league titles and is a nine-time finalist in the Champions League or its predecessor, the European Cup.
For much of this century, Italian women’s soccer lagged behind the exponential growth seen in many of its continental and North American counterparts. Serie A did not even gain fully professional status until 2022. But in just eight years since the women’s team was founded, Juventus has been at the forefront of rapid domestic growth in the women’s game, winning six league titles and qualifying for eight consecutive Champions Leagues.
“If it was just a random club overseas, I don’t know how much I would have considered it,” Brighton said. “But because it was Juventus, everything seemed to be falling into place so perfectly. It felt like a sign that I needed to go. That kind of made my decision for me.”
Adjusting to a New World
A week or two before Brighton embarked for Northern Italy, her slightly exasperated mom lamented that she hadn’t started packing for the move. Brighton assured her she had everything under control. It slightly undercuts her argument that she spent her final evening in the United States asking friend and Vanderbilt teammate Kate Devine whether or not various items were worthy of space in her still largely empty bags.
Mentally, she didn’t so much move to Italy in early January as leave on an extended trip. She didn’t know exactly what awaited—but she was eager for the adventure.
It helped that Juventus is no fly-by-night operation. A staff member took care of logistics, from getting her situated in a team-affiliated hotel near the training ground where she lived for a month until moving into more permanent digs to setting her up with a car. Her dad also traveled with her on the outbound journey. While she went through the requisite medicals and fitness tests, he helped with everyday details like setting up a local bank account.
But at some point in any unfamiliar surroundings, you are on your own— literally when the staff goes off the clock or your dad returns home. You explore. You try and fail and try again. You adapt. She accepted that eating dinner before 8:30 p.m. qualifies for early-bird status. She tried afternoon espressos—and quickly decided she didn’t mind marking herself as a foreigner by sticking with the cappuccinos that locals only drink in the morning. She adapted to the smaller roads and tight roundabouts when she drove. She got used to other drivers delivering the quintessential Italian hand gesture, thumb pressed against the top of the fingers as the raised hand expresses frustration. She even delivered a few of her own.
Like putting on the famous jersey with its black and white vertical stripes, she gradually settled in as, if not quite a local, more than a tourist.
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Daring to Grow
The Juventus women play most home games in a smaller venue than the 45,000-seat Allianz Stadium that the men call home. But in May, with the Serie A title clinched, Brighton and her teammates played their final home game of the season at the Allianz. Attendance didn’t quite equal the more than 39,000 who nearly filled the same stadium in 2019 to set an Italian record for a women’s game. But looking up at thousands upon thousands of Juventus fans, Brighton wondered if she’ll ever play in front of a bigger crowd.
From Vanderbilt to Nashville SC, the Music City is deservedly feted for its emerging soccer culture, but few places compare to Italy.
“People are so passionate about football, and it’s so cool to see,” Brighton said. “We always have the same fan group at our games. They’re amazing—they bring these massive flags, make chants for the players. It’s just so cool. Especially during a game, it really helps to have that atmosphere from a big crowd that’s so invested. It amps you up a little bit.”
On the field, she fit right in, starting in eight of her final nine league appearances and regularly playing the full 90 minutes. She also started Juventus’ 4-0 win against Roma in the Coppa Italia final. She quickly learned she didn’t have as much time on the ball as she was used to in college—or as much time for much of anything when sharing a field with women sometimes nearly a decade older and more experienced than her. As with the roundabouts and afternoon coffees, she adapted.
“Say we’re in our attacking 18 and there is a counterattack,” Brighton said by way of example, “I better haul butt to get back to my own 18.”
Learning is rarely easy. Learning in a language you haven’t mastered is even more of a challenge. While she’s the only American, there are English speakers on the team, including a contingent of multilingual Scandinavians who helped translate instructions as she settled in—except when they, too, could only shrug in incomprehension. But from Sara Gama, the recently retired standout who captained both Juventus and Italy during her long career, to manager Massimiliano Canzi, she’s surrounded by people with knowledge to share and who are invested in helping her grow—knowing it serves all of them.
“There is always room for growth in so many areas as an athlete,” Brighton said. “I learned a lot in club soccer, but I learned so much more in college. College is where I developed my defending skills. Darren really pushed me to become a physical player—I wasn’t leave-your-feet physical until Vanderbilt. So there were so many things I learned at Vanderbilt that I brought into the professional environment. And now that I’m at Juventus, I’m learning so many new things that I hadn’t even thought about before.”
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The Next Act Awaits
Before returning stateside following Juventus’ season, she was called up to the United States Under-23 Women’s National Team, often a pathway to call ups from the senior national team. She played in both of the U23 team’s matches against Germany in that country, starting once and playing more than 120 minutes in all. In Nashville more recently for a brief respite and to pop in to see her old coach, Brighton heads back to Turin in July ahead of a new Serie A season and her first taste of the Champions League. Under contract for two more years in Italy, she has much left to accomplish on and off the field.
Her apartment is walking distance from Turin’s historic city center, offering culture (and shopping) aplenty. She had brief interactions this past season with the Americans on the men’s team, Weston McKennie and Timothy Weah, but she would like to take in one of their games at the Allianz and soak in that atmosphere. Free time isn’t abundant, but she hopes to travel around Europe, Turin only a quick flight or six-hour train ride from places like Paris.
“Liking your life outside of soccer is really important,” Brighton said. “Now that soccer is kind of all you do, it’s really nice to have a balance on the other side. At Vanderbilt, I was always busy with a lot of other stuff. Now that it’s work—and even if it doesn’t feel like work, it’s your job—you really want to enjoy life outside of it because that does help on the field.”
For her former college teammates, many of whom are hoping to follow in the footsteps of predecessors like Brighton, Devine (who played professionally in Iceland this spring) and NWSL alums like Haley Hopkins and Simone Charley, that’s the best advice she has.
“It’s kind of hard to tell them anything too deep because you don’t know what opportunities are going to arise,” Brighton said. “You just have to see what comes and go from there.”
Wherever that may lead.