Most Australians couldn’t imagine going overseas in the middle of a pandemic, but for Brisbane native Isobel Dalton, her signing to Napoli couldn’t have come at a better time.
Dalton joined up with the famous light blue squad for their inaugural campaign, after the longest period of her life without playing soccer since she could remember.
“There have been times where I’ve had two weeks off and that felt huge so two full months, it feels like a lifetime,” she said.
“Just having to train by yourself over time can be quite difficult and you have to like really find like motivation within yourself to like get going.”
Dalton started the year off being signed to Glasgow City, but after only a week of training with the team the UK had announced a COVID-19 lockdown which forced her to return to Brisbane.
“After that week, I was kind of like a bit lost and for the past, what, three months, four months? I basically did nothing. We trained on our own so that was really, really difficult,” she said.
“When the opportunity popped up to come over to Italy, I immediately took it because I wanted to start playing again so like even though it was another country, I wanted a new challenge anyway, so it was kind of like a blessing in disguise.”
Having played in the United States for college, playing overseas isn’t anything new but needing to learn a whole other language poses a new challenge for Dalton.
“I use apps on my phone and I try to use them to help me, but apart from that, I kind of just listen because I’ve been told by a few of the other girls that have to learn the easiest ways to listen and just take it in and understand what’s being said,” she said.
Going from Colorado, to Brisbane and now playing in a major European league has meant Dalton has had to constantly adapt to different styles of play her whole career.
“I think most leagues that I’ve played in have been quite fitness-based, like Australia. Lots of running, everyone’s really fit, and you just run for 90 minutes, whereas I think over here, it’s a lot more technical and physical too,” Dalton said.
“So, I think it will be definitely different from the W-League and other leagues I played in. But it’s kind of something that I’ve we need to work on myself anyway. So, I think it’ll be interesting, but I think it’ll be fun.”
“It’s something that I don’t think W-League has much of, whereas here, it’s like, a really important part of their game. So rather being like, spurts of physicality, I think here it’s just the whole 90 minutes will be that,” she said.
Being homesick and away from family is something that all professional athletes, unfortunately, have to face, and with the world facing COVID-19 it doesn’t make things any easier. Luckily for Dalton, she has a great support network with her family back home.
“It is hard. I speak to them literally all the time every single day I speak to them, and which makes it obviously easier.”
“At the end of the day, I know I’m making them proud. So, I know it’s where they would want me to be even though it does suck at times being away from them.”
Like most Australian players, Dalton is hoping to be a part of the Matildas future. With already caps under her belt for the U-15-16 and U-17 young Matilda squads, it should only be a matter of time till we see her debut.
“I want to play for the national team, and so I hope that’s in the near future. I feel like I’m putting myself in the best position to be available to that,” she said.
“I’m kind of just developing and learning new things, which I think is like important being here in Italy too because it’s a different style of play and so it’s teaching me things that maybe I wasn’t used to or involved in.”
Napoli kicked off their season with a 0-1 loss, with Dalton starting and playing the first 75 minutes.
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