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“My mum is not going to be at the final,” says Kerolin Nicoli. “She is scared of the weather. She said she will come when it is super, super warm.
She can’t do it, the cold. She can’t. “I wear two pairs of (tracksuit) pants sometimes in training.
A lot of jackets, gloves, things over my face, everything, because it’s hard.” Advertisement Manchester’s winter climate is a stark difference for City’s new January signing. She is used to the higher temperatures of Sao Paulo, Brazil, where she grew up, and the southern United States, where she played for National Women’s Soccer League side North Carolina Courage.
The Brazil international had a moment of reprieve, however, when sunshine graced the north west of England last week, hinting at the arrival of spring. “It was amazing!,” Kerolin beams, wrapped in a thick dark-green coat at City’s Subway Women’s League Cup final media day ahead of the game against Chelsea on Saturday. “This little sun, it’s perfect.
But no, sometimes I ask myself, ‘What am I doing here?’. “I hope I really, really get what I want, because if not, I’m going to be really disappointed,” she laughs. And what is it she wants? “I want to be at the top of the (Ballon d’Or) list,” she says.
“It’s not going to be easy, but dreams are for that, right?” Indeed the list of Ballon d’Or Feminin 2024 nominees, which featured eight players each from clubs in England and Spain (with some overlapping given they had been transferred during the year) among the 30 names, informed the 25-year-old’s decision to come to the Women’s Super League (WSL). Before signing a three-and-a-half-year contract with City, Kerolin spoke to Brazil team-mate and Aston Villa forward Gabi Nunes about the best teams in the WSL and noted City’s history of competing for trophies. She cites last year’s WSL Golden Boot winner Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw and England international Lauren Hemp as City players she was excited to share the pitch with.
“When I was looking at City, I thought, ‘Maybe I could go and make history, being the first Brazilian over there, and, for the first time, win the Champions League?’. Why not?” Kerolin, who has also spoken to her fellow Brazilians in City’s men’s squad, Vitor Reis and Savinho, is aware of the hard yards ahead in her bid to be recognised as the best in the world but says: “I’m not going to be surprised if it happens, because I’m working for that.” Advertisement Following the departure of Gareth Taylor on Monday because of, according to the fourth-placed club, subpar results, Kerolin will now have to impress interim boss Nick Cushing, who previously managed the City women’s side from 2013 to 2020.
Taylor’s playing style, according to Kerolin, was similar to that of the Courage and she had expected that to make the transition to a new league smoother. “I’m really new, so it’s hard to say a lot about the coach (Taylor),” she says. “It is what it is.
Now we need to be together and try to fight for the finals.” Moving from the NWSL to the WSL, which she describes as a tougher league, away from her friends and family, is pushing Kerolin outside her comfort zone. She has noticed the greater physicality in England and how defenders close her down quickly, which means she needs to take action earlier.
Nunes told Kerolin her dribbling and fakes would fool the opposition. “But when I came here, it wasn’t like that!” she says. “I said, ‘Hey, Nunes, you said to me, it would be easy, but it’s not! Come on!’.
“West Ham (who City drew 1-1 with last week in the WSL), the team is really tight, they make it hard, they come to my body all the time and it’s frustrating because I know how I can play. When I look at the legs..
. (she laughs)..
. Today will be hard! But then I think, ‘No, today is going to be hard for them , because I’m going to go and go and go and not give up’. It will come.
The time will come.” Kerolin also has her sights on the 2027 World Cup, which Brazil will host, and believes the WSL — in her words, “the best league in the world” — is perfect preparation to face the sort of high-quality defenders she’ll encounter if chosen for that tournament. “They’re going to be scared!,” she adds.
Kerolin is an instinctive player who gets fans off their seats. Growing up playing barefoot with boys on the streets of Sao Paulo and practising capoeira (the Brazilian martial art form that combines self-defence, acrobatics, dance and music) added layers to her game. Those boys were stronger and faster than her, so she had to use her body, fake one way or drop the shoulder and think differently about how to outmanoeuvre them.
These days, she is known for her forward-thinking and aggressive, attacking dribbles which contributed to her being voted the NWSL’s most valuable player and onto its all-star team for the 2023 season. Advertisement “You’re going to say, ‘That’s crazy’, but sometimes I don’t know how I do things,” Kerolin says. “The talent, when it’s there, and players around you are encouraging you to do it (take players on), it’s so much easier.
I know I have quality.” Inspired by the work ethic of Real Madrid’s Brazil men’s team forward Vinicius Junior, Kerolin stays 10 to 15 minutes longer after training, working on her one v ones, crossing and finishing. Every session and game means even more to her now following an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee injury just before the NWSL title play-offs in October 2023 that kept her out for almost a whole year.
“Was it the worst moment of my career? Definitely,” she says. “I went from being the MVP of the league to nothing. I wasn’t walking anymore.
You never know when it could happen to you. It showed me how much it matters.” The Brazilian had to wait until last September to make her return and has had to be patient and manage expectations on the long road back to fitness.
“It’s really hard,” she says. “I’m talking about that confidence but I’m still coming back from injury. When I talk with my family after games, I’d be really frustrated.
My two last games, I was alright, but I know I can do more. We need to understand the process and respect it, because it’s not easy. It’s always going to be up and down.
I get it, but I don’t want it to happen. I want to be at the level and stay there.” Kerolin is relishing the challenge of facing WSL champions and 2024-25 unbeaten league leaders Chelsea on Saturday at Pride Park in Derby, but her philosophy is to stay relaxed, “feel the five minutes of the game and then go and then go and then go.
” “At least if I go 10 times and (win) one, we score, I did my job. Normally, we’d be like, ‘Oh, I need to be perfect, I need to do everything good, I can’t miss’. But it’s part of the game, just have fun.
” Advertisement Having never played against Chelsea, who remarkably meet City four times in a row over the next two weeks, with a WSL fixture in Manchester sandwiched between two legs of a Champions League quarter-final, Kerolin thinks being something of an unknown quantity will play to her advantage: “This could help me to go one against one, assist, make them run backwards and make them think, ‘What the hell is going on?’.” Despite only having limited time working with new coach Cushing this week, she thinks his style of play is “exciting” and says it’s important to “feel free”, “have fun” and show the fans the City players at their best. “We are feeling good.
We are ready, we are together, we want to make history,” she says of City, who lost 2-0 in London when these teams met in the WSL in November. “It doesn’t matter what is going to happen off the field. On it, we want to beat Chelsea.
” (Top photo: James Fearn via Getty Images).
