Two Oak Park pro players to compete in soccer tourney

GETTING HER KICKS—Catiana Vitanza, 17, practices dribbling at a recent training session. Catiana and her sister Aricca, 18, are the first two American women to play in the Women's Professional League in Europe. Two Oak Park sisters, ages 17 and 18, who already play professional soccer, will participate in 2009 UEFA Champion's LeagueWomen's Cup in Europe.

For Catiana and Aricca Vitanza, soccer has been a big part of their lives since they were 5 years old, starting with AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization) in Agoura Hills and their father's coaching from the sidelines.

By the time they were 9 and 10 years old they were playing on the youth club soccer circuit in Southern California's Coast Soccer League.

They began training with Zoran Lomic, a former European pro player and UEFA "A" licensed professional coach, in Oak Park. In a few years they were training with Lomic five hours a day before school started.

The girls wanted to play professional soccer, so Lomic arranged for them to travel to the former Yugoslavia in the Republic of Serbia, his home country, to train with a first division team.

Through his ties in the world of pro soccer and with the FSS (Serbian Soccer Federation), he arranged training with the most successful first division women's club, ZFK Masinac PZP (pronounced MahSHEEnatz)

Catiana and Aricca attended pre-season camp with the team for 10 days. The girls performed well and impressed the coaches. Coach Perica Krstic, the technical director of ZFK Masinac and the longest active Women's National Team head coach in Europe, obtained a special dispensation from the FSS to allow the sisters to train and live with the Serbian Women's National Team at training camp for an additional two weeks.

Following the camps, the girls were offered to sign with ZFK Masinac PZP.

The sisters made Serbian and Balkan soccer history by becoming the first American women players to sign and play in the Women's Professional League (Prva Liga). They became two of the starting 11 with Catiana starting in the midfield and Aricca playing up front.

Their season ended with helping their team win the double, both the League Championship and the National Championship Cup titles. They secured their spot in group A2 for 2009 UEFA Champions LeagueWomen's Cup as champions of Serbia. The sisters will compete against the champions of the Netherlands, Scotland and Moldova in the first round beginning the first week of September.

The sisters are currently training in the mountains of Rudnik, a small town near Belgrade, Serbia.

As dual Italian EU/American citizens, they may continue playing professional soccer in Europe, or return to the states when women's professional soccer returns to the U.S. as the new WPS women's pro league in 2009.