Angela Iannotta (born 22 March 1971) is an Italian Australian soccer coach and former player. As a forward, she represented Australia women's national association football team in the 1995 and 1999 FIFA Women's World Cups and played club football in Australia, Italy and Japan. Iannotta's equaliser against China in 1995 was Australia's first ever World Cup goal.[2]

Angela Iannotta
Personal information
Full name Angela Iannotta
Date of birth (1971-03-22) 22 March 1971 (age 53)
Place of birth Myrtleford, Australia
Height 1.58 m (5 ft 2 in)
Position(s) Forward
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
Melrose Park Rangers
Albury City
Albury United
1992–1996 ACF Agliana
1996–1997 Panasonic Bambina
1997–1998 Autolelli Picenum
1998–1999 Canberra Eclipse
Autolelli Picenum
International career
1991–1999

Australia

[1]
33 (10)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 21:44, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 21:44, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Iannotta played alongside Italy's Carolina Morace in Agliana's 1994–95 Scudetto winning team. In 1996–97 Iannotta joined Cheryl Salisbury and Sunni Hughes at Panasonic Bambina of Japan's L. League. Two broken legs, sustained seven months apart, derailed Iannotta's progress in Japan and she returned to Italy. In 1998 she accepted a place on the Australian Institute of Sport Football Program, ahead of the following year's World Cup in the United States.

In July 2023, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's digital sports journalist Samantha Lewis complained that footage of Australia's first Women's World Cup goal, scored by Iannotta, is not freely available but is "buried on a database at FIFA headquarters" which would cost "an unfathomable amount of money" to officially license.[3] Lewis stated: "In this day of social media and live-streaming and the endless churn of sports content, it's hard to imagine that a goal as iconic as this would simply fade away, placed in a figurative box on a figurative shelf and left to gather dust."[3]

References edit

  1. ^ "Official Media Guide of Australia at the FIFA Women's World Cup Germany 2011" (PDF). Football Federation Australia. 8 July 2011. p. 53. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
  2. ^ "Angela Iannotta". Australian Sports Commission. Archived from the original on 19 January 2000. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
  3. ^ a b Lewis, Samantha (23 July 2023). "Meet Angela Iannotta, Australia's forgotten Women's World Cup pioneer and the historic goal she almost didn't score". ABC News. Retrieved 23 July 2023.

External links edit