GIELNIK Emily

General
CLUB JOURNEY
She began her professional career at Australian W-League side Brisbane Roar and played there from 2008 to 2018. In the W-League off season she played for Liverpool in England in 2012, for Ottawa Fury in Canada in 2013, for Urawa Red Diamonds in Japan in 2016, and for Norwegian side Avaldsnes IL in 2017. In 2018/19 she moved to W-League side Melbourne Victory where she won the league, and in the 2019/20 season she played for Bayern Munich in Germany and in Sweden for Vittsjo GIK. In late 2020 she returned to Brisbane Roar, but left the club in April 2021 to move back to Sweden with Vittsjo GIK. (newschainonline.com, 02 Jan 2021; lianaburatti.com, 16 Mar 2019; worldfootball.net, 01 Apr 2021)

MISSING RIO
She missed out on selection to the Australia squad for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, a moment in her career that both disappointed and motivated her. "[It] was heart wrenching and disappointing, to say the least, I felt entirely defeated at that point, I felt like I had done what I could do, and I wasn't going. A very difficult time in my career to understand but moving past that was just as important for me so that's what I focused on. I remember that feeling of actually watching the girls at the Olympics from my couch with my family and just how passionate and excited I was to be supporting them. I knew that's what I wanted. I wanted to be on the other end of that, being a part of that. So that was more so when it really sunk in that I wanted that more than anything." (olympics.com, 07 May 2021)

FITNESS GYM HELPS FORM
In 2013 she started a personal training and fitness business from her garage in order to help support herself while playing football. After not being selected for the 2016 Olympic Games she put more focus on the business and opened the ShredEm gym in Brisbane, QLD, Australia, which she credited with helping improve her football. In late 2018 she decided to put the business on hold to focus on football. "After I got cut from the Olympics [2016], I started to realise that I've got to do something that makes me happy and I opened the gym. Everything just went so well, and I had never been so happy so of course my football just skyrocketed. Of course I was missing and craving the Matildas, but I stopped putting so much heavy pressure on myself thinking that that's all I wanted. I had the gym and so that created some happiness and some drive for me. I was in and out of the squad for a couple of years and was juggling my personal training business, ShredEm, and was just not choosing football, so I had to make a tough decision. So in the end I gave up ShredEm, which I loved, but once I fully committed and just indulged myself into living and breathing the game, that's when everything changed." (lianaburatti.com, 16 Mar 2019; Instagram profile, 20 Apr 2020; Instagram page shredemfitness, 07 Nov 2020; matildas.com.au, 18 May 2020)

EARLY DAYS
At age 15 she initially failed to get in to the state-level Queensland Academy of Sport [QAS], but while on a tour of the Australian Institute of Sport [AIS] she joined in a training session with the Matildas, who were training at the AIS at the time. As a result of that training session she was finally invited to attend QAS. "A lot of my friends received invitations from the QAS, but having that year off [2007] combined with some injuries meant I didn't make it. All I wanted was to play in the Young Matildas and the W-League. I saw everyone get ahead of me, which was tough, but it didn't deter me, it motivated me to find another way. After I missed out on QAS, I went on a school tour to the AIS and the Matildas just happened to be training there with Tom Sermanni. My school coach asked if I could join in and I had an absolute blinder. I was 15, totally intimidated and playing against the best female footballers in the country, but Tom called my coach afterwards wanting to get me into the QAS programme and that was whe