Published on April 14, 2011
Hello and welcome to my blog!! I hope you all jump on aboard with Connect World Football and follow some of our journeys throughout the world. Women’s football is on the rise all over the world. I am grateful to be a part of it and am excited to be a part of the uprising success. Hope you all enjoy following my adventures regarding football and experiencing cultures outside of the US.
I am Felicia Schroeder, and I’m currently 24 years old. I am also deaf. I am originally from Cincinnati, Ohio. I and graduated from Purdue University. I played two soccer seasons at the University of South Carolina (’07-’08) and at Purdue University (’07-’08). I have signed a contract to play with Åland United. We play in the top division in Finland, the Naistenliiga league. Although the Åland Islands are owned by Finland the native language of the island is Swedish and most people here speak Swedish.
I arrived to the island on March 1st. I must say it was the longest trip of my life. My flight from Cincinnati, OH to Newark, NJ was delayed 5 hours, which caused me to miss my flight to Stockholm. Instead of flying from Newark to Stockholm, I had to fly to London Heathrow then to Stockholm. Most people fly to Stockholm on their way to the Åland Islands. They take a ferry either from Helsinki (capital of Finland) or from Stockholm (capital of Sweden). It is a 2-hour ferry from Stockholm and 10 hours from Helsinki. I arrived in Stockholm after the ferries were closed so I had to take a private jet to the Ålands. I finally arrived about 34 hours after I left Cincinnati.
As I am sure many of you have questions about my transition to a different culture, country, and language since I am deaf. The transition has been as great as can be. Growing up I was raised in the “hearing world” so I have learned to read lips and speak very well. Most of my conversations with people are relatively easy. My coach for Åland United is from England. Most people on the island know pretty good English. My teammates have been so great about the fact that I am deaf. There are two English girls, two other Americans, and an Estonian. The rest are from Finland, Sweden or Aland Islands.
We had a few friendly matches against our reserves, IFK Mariehamn, and against some quality Swedish teams. Unfortunately, I sprained my ankle pretty badly three weeks ago when we played a Swedish team. Luckily, I was healthy enough to come back for our season’s opener in Helsinki on April 10th.
It was a great experience playing the best team in Finland, HJK. We had the lead for the first 75 minutes, but ended up losing 2-1. It was unfortunate but the good news is that we know we are able to compete with the best teams in the league and will have to work on fixin our mistakes and improve each game.
Our home opener is this weekend against FC United. Our first 3 games of the season are indoors until the grass at our fields dries up. I will check back in and keep you all updated with Åland United’s season.
ps. There was a photo shoot for the new players for both women’s and men’s professional teams on the island. Here is one of the USA girls! Photo Courtesy of Stefan Óhberg.
