Luca Righi is the new head coach of the Women’s Under-16 National Team

Just as it did two years ago, the Women’s Under-16 National Team is gearing up for a UEFA Development Tournament which, unlike the pioneering 2024 edition, will this time be played away from home. And, as two years ago, one of the stepping stones towards that tournament will be a friendly match at the Olympic Preparation Centre in Tirrenia against Italy’s Calcio+15 Selection. In truth, this fixture was also confirmed in 2025, even without a Development Tournament on the schedule. History repeating itself, then, while the major new feature today is the figure of the head coach. No longer Giacomo Piva, now involved with the Under-19 National Team, but Luca Righi, a Sammarinese coach born in 1995 with recent experience at the FIGC, now also Technical Director of grassroots football at San Marino Academy and assistant coach of the Under-15 side led by Francesco Rossi. “I am really very happy with this appointment. – comments Righi – I’ve moved from working as a coach at a Federal Centre, where we had weekly training camps, to a daily commitment with groups ranging from grassroots to competitive football. I believe wearing these two hats is an advantage. It allows my staff and me to work in depth with a broad group of girls, some of whom we then see again with the Under-16 National Team. This way we can insist on technical and tactical principles – both individual and collective – that can bear fruit in many different ways, and above all foster the all-round development of the players themselves.”

As mentioned, for the third year running the team will travel to Tirrenia to take on an Italian selection. “I think the main objective of this friendly is to bank some international experience. – continues Righi – We will follow this path all the way to the Development Tournament. The result will be an important aspect, but not the key one in our work. We will focus on the development of these girls, some of whom are very young even for an Under-16 national side. The bulk of the squad is made up of players born in 2010 and 2011, but we will also need to draw on girls born in 2012, who at club level are not yet used to playing 11-a-side and will therefore also need to be coached tactically to handle in the best possible way a context that is completely new to them. We want to see progress in terms of performances, personality, desire and ability to compete. These matches will give us the opportunity to build a solid base which, in the medium to long term, will help us develop the older-age national teams.”

The 2024 Development Tournament was a historic milestone for women’s football in San Marino. But in a certain sense, the next one will be too, because for the first time the Under-16 National Team will play it outside the country’s borders. “For many of the girls this will be their first time away from home for a relatively long period. And it is something incredibly formative. I went through it myself as a player and I have extremely positive memories of it, as well as a clear sense of how helpful it was for my development. I know my girls very well and I know their qualities, both technical and moral: I am certain they will make the very most of this trip, drawing great lessons from it. As staff, we will of course have to be particularly good at facilitating this process. On the pitch, I am just as sure they will fight for every ball and honour a shirt that means so much to them.”

The women’s national team project of the Titano has already come a long way, but it is still very young. Among the factors driving it forward is a growing sense of belonging and togetherness, which Righi himself also observes thanks to his dual role: “In recent months I have clearly seen that among the San Marino Academy’s Under-15, Under-17 and Under-19 squads there is great team spirit. For example, last Sunday, during the first match of the Under-15 play-offs, many players from the Under-17 and Under-19 squads were in the stands supporting their younger team-mates. All this is a huge strength for the national teams as well. This strong bond obviously does not disappear when they take off the club shirt: on the contrary, it helps them see the senior national teams as an ambitious yet achievable goal. The year 2026 will be very important for us, because it will see two women’s national teams of the Titano competing in UEFA competitions: the Under-19s in Round 2 of European Qualifying and the Under-16s in the Development Tournament to be played in May in North Macedonia.”

Luca Righi and the Under-16 group have already begun the series of training camps that will lead up to the Development Tournament, starting with the friendly in Tirrenia scheduled for Thursday 19 February.