When Aurora Galli returned to Tromello, the Italian municipality of less than 4,000 people in which she was born, she was fighting back the tears – but not in a bad way.
While ‘Yaya’, as she’s known, and her team-mates were enjoying an historic run to the quarter-finals of the 2019 World Cup, they were winning the hearts of a nation.
But it wasn’t until they got back to Italy that they realised the impression they had made on the Italian public.
“Everyone stayed in the plaza,” Galli recalls to GOAL. “My full city stayed there just for me. I was like, 'Okay, I don't want to cry!'
“During the tournament, we didn't realise what was happening in Italy, so we were just in shock. Everyone was in shock.”
She laughs at the idea of ever imagining that sort of thing could happen as a little girl.
Instead, when Galli was growing up just south of Milan, her idols were on the men’s side.
Her father and brother were fans of Inter and regulars at the games, so she would be too – despite her mother’s best efforts to make her a Juventus fan.
“Twice, I was a mascot,” the 25-year-old remembers. “The first time was with Javier Zanetti, who is my idol. I was like a stone, just stuck in this way.
"I didn't understand anything. I was maybe eight years old and I just looked around in San Siro and was like, 'Okay. I am very little!'
“I don't have the picture, so I'm very angry about this with my dad!”
Fast forward a few years and, having earned a move to Juventus that made her mother “very happy”, the midfielder was primed to enjoy the incredible lift that Italian women’s football was about to receive.
She was winning titles for fun with the Bianconere – picking up seven trophies in her four seasons with a side set to take huge steps in the Champions League.
But instead of staying in Turin, she’d sign for Everton, becoming the first Italian to grace England’s Women’s Super League. Was it difficult to leave when she did?
“Yes and no,” Galli explains. “Because I knew [Italy] was my comfort zone, so if I stayed there, I knew that probably this year I would win again, but it's not enough for me.
“I want to improve all the time and if I stay in one place more than four years, it's like, every day I see the same people, the same things. I don't want this. I want to see new things.
“The most important thing was my two friends, [Lisa] Boattin and [Arianna] Caruso, who are also my team-mates in the national team. We have a very good relationship so when I say to them, 'Okay, I'm leaving', they said, 'No, you stay here.'
“I say, 'Okay, you can come with me. We can go to England together!'
"But yes, I was really sure about my choice. I don't regret it.”
Getty/GOALShe says that despite a season she and many more didn’t expect from Everton.
The club made nine signings last summer and was bullish in its desire to secure Champions League football. However, head coach Willie Kirk was sacked after three defeats in the opening five games – all at the hands of last season’s top three.
In came Jean-Luc Vasseur, having won the Champions League with Lyon a year before, but he would suffer the same fate.
Going into this final weekend of the WSL season, Everton are safe from relegation, but will either finish the campaign third or fourth from bottom.
“I'm disappointed, of course,” Galli says, reflecting on her first year on Merseyside. “I arrived after four years of winning with Juventus, so it's a shock not to take the three points every weekend.
“Changing two coaches is not good for the team and for the club, but I think also that for the group, it was a good thing, because now we can see the strong group.
"I think that we have to improve our mentality to win, but it's a strong group. We stay together and this is our power, so I think that the next season will be good.”
There are positives to take for her as an individual – learning a new language, improving as a player from the new experience and, most importantly, finding a good Italian restaurant.
There are positives for the team, too, particularly in the chemistry they’ve built after so many new faces.
“It was very hard to play together,” Galli admits looking back, but she’s since forged great relationships with her team-mates – especially fellow midfielder Kenza Dali.
“It’s very easy to play with Kenza because she wants the ball,” she explains. “We have a very good connection - but also with the other girls, with Izzy [Christiansen], for example.
"I really enjoy playing with her because she's the captain but also a very good person. On the pitch, she is very smart.”
These new friendships are about to be tested, though. Galli will face Dali’s France in Italy’s opening game of this summer’s Euros, which the pair have already been joking about.
She could then take on a trio of her Swedish club-mates in the quarter-finals and even more of the Everton group if Italy go further – something which many believe the team is capable of.
If little ‘Yaya’, starstruck by Zanetti and San Siro, wouldn’t believe she’d become a professional footballer, play with Everton in a country where “football is the life” or get the hero’s reception she did after the World Cup three years ago, she certainly wouldn’t believe surpassing that at the Euros.
“When I came back from the World Cup, it was just, 'Okay where am I?' Because it was a dream and I know that I want to do another dream,” she says.
“If I have to say something to little Yaya, I want to say: 'Just do what you think and continue to follow your dream, because this is the key.'
“My key is this: just follow my dream.”
It’s working so far.