Benedetta Glionna

Benedetta Glionna (born 26 July 1999) is an Italian footballer who plays as a forward for Roma and the Italy women's national team. She moved to Roma on 5 July 2021 and signed a contract until the summer of 2024.

Club Career

Glionna began her youth career with Fiammamonza in 2011 and was promoted to the senior team by the beginning of the 2013-2014 season due to the club's financial crisis and forced relegation to Serie C, along with long-time teammate Sofia Cantore. Fiammamonza began to push for promotion with Glionna and Cantore as first-team regulars, but narrowly missed out on the jump to Serie B in Glionna's first two seasons of senior football with the club. Finally, in the 2016-17 season, Fiammamonza gained promoted to Serie B thanks to decisive goals from Glionna and Cantore in the 7 May 2017 3-2 league victory over Olimpia Paitone. By the summer of 2017, Glionna had scored at least 70 goals for Fiammamonza and the prolific duo of Glionna-Cantore did not go unnoticed by newly-formed Serie A giants Juventus, who signed both young Italian forwards for the 2017-2018 season.

Despite the jump to top-level Serie A football following her move to Juventus, Glionna's profilic goalscoring did not slow down in Turin. Glionna finished her first season with Juventus scoring 11 goals in 24 games for the club in all competitions (including 9 league goals in 20 league games) at senior level, helping the club to win their first Serie A league title in 2018. Glionna was also still young enough to be eligible to play for Juventus Primavera in the 2017-2018 season, where she helped the Primavera team get to the playoff final (lost against eventual Primavera champions Pink Bari).

For her performances in her first season with Juventus, Glionna was awarded the European Goldern Girl Trophy (Best Italian Young Player award) by Tuttosport in December 2018. Despite her success on the field (including a league and couple double with Juventus in 2019), Glionna's second season in Turin was beset by repeated