Vicky Losada To Fulfil Destiny Of Playing At Camp Nou With AS Roma

When Catalan Vicky Losada joined AS Roma this month it seemed preordained that two weeks later, the draw for the UEFA Women’s Champions League quarter-finals was fated to pair the Italian side against Barcelona, the team Losada represented with distinction in three spells. She told me “destiny will bring me back home”.

On February 1, Losada announced she would be joining the Italian league leaders AS Roma from Manchester City until the end of the season. With six matches remaining in the Serie A campaign, Roma stand eight points clear of Juventus, the champions in the previous five seasons. In sight of their first-ever league title, Roma hope Losada’s experience and midfield quality will help take the capital club over the line.

Roma have also been making waves in their debut season in the UEFA Women’s Champions League. Having come through two qualifying rounds, they impressed in the group stage, emerging as runners-up to German champions VfL Wolfsburg to make the last eight, where they were drawn to play Spanish champions FC Barcelona.

Losada admits to me she may not even have the support of her family when she takes on the club she has supported since birth. “I think they will be supporting Barça!” she laughs. “A lot of people have text me and football, as I say, is more just a sport. I think there is a human part, and when it comes to that emotional side it doesn’t matter about colors. What I know for sure is that I’m a Roma player and I’m going to defend these colors with all my heart. As a professional footballer, it’s a massive game in which you want to do well and I think it’s important for this team.”

Using the marketing slogan Con una sola voce (With just one voice), AS Roma are tapping into their ‘one club’ ethos by offering all of their 36,000 season-ticket holders at the Stadio Olimpico a free ticket to the match against Barcelona. In the first 12 days of sales, 16,000 tickets have been issued for Roma’s first-ever women’s match at the Stadio Olimpico and general sale prices remain low, between €5-15.

The second leg of March’s quarter-final tie will be played at Camp Nou, a stadium Losada has never played in despite representing the club on over 200 occasions, winning over 20 trophies and captaining the team in two UEFA Women’s Champions League finals.

In January 2021, FC Barcelona Femení played their first-ever match at the 99,354 capacity Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe. Club captain at the time, Losada agonisingly missed out on leading out Barça at the ground after testing positive for Covid-19 just days before the game, which also prevented her from even being in the stadium.

Despite the game being played behind closed doors due to the Covid-restrictions in Spain at the time, Losada pinpoints that match as a pivotal point in the club’s history. “It was a massive moment in general for women’s football because Barça was the club that opened a massive stadium. Especially with the team being so successful, we knew that it was going to bring a lot of attention within society. I’m very proud to have been part of that team that was not only playing football but breaking barriers in general.”

Barcelona ended the season as European champions with Losada coming on as a substitute in the Champions League final to assume the captain’s armband and lift the trophy for her hometown club. Yet a fortnight later, she announced she would be leaving the team after five years, eventually signing for Manchester City.

Losada’s impact in Manchester was limited during her 18 months there but her presence assisted with the integration into the club this season of fellow Catalans, Laia Aleixandri and Leila Ouahabi, both also signed from FC Barcelona. Losada told me, “I was very unlucky with injuries. I enjoyed so much my time there. I’m at Roma now but I left some good friends over there that I’m going to keep in contact with. I would have loved to be more available for Manchester City but as I said, things change quickly and I’ve had to make decisions as I’ve always done in my life and here I am in Roma.”

Losada is also remembered as the scorer of her country’s first-ever goal at the FIFA Women’s World Cup finals with her strike 1in Montreal against Costa Rica in 2015. Losada has been out of the international picture since 2019 but has not officially retired from the national side despite the ongoing dispute between the head coach, Jorge Vilda, and fifteen of the country’s leading players.

“I played for ten years with the national team then I had some injuries and I came away from that, then all these things happened with fifteen players. In the end, I’m out of it now so I don’t know what is really going on. I respect the girls and I will always be supporting their way of asking to get better conditions. I think it’s just showing an ambitious mentality when you want to grow and you want to be ready and be your best.”

“A football career is really short and you never know if your going to have the same chances in the future. I just hope, in general, everything can be solved and that Spain goes to the World Cup in the best way in terms of preparation and with the best players that we can take.”

“Of course if they call me, it’s something I have to think about. It will be a bit bittersweet, because there’s a few problems. I’m the sort of person that I’m not going to think about something that’s not happening so I’m not going to spend energy on that. If that happens, we’ll see.”