Furlan focused on a World Cup swansong

MANUELA FURLAN only recently returned to the Italy team after almost two years of injury struggle, but she’s honest enough to admit that the end is in sight.

The 32-year-old Azzurre skipper, who has 75 caps, says it was the prospect of leading her country to another World Cup that kept her going during the darkest days of her long recovery from a complex shoulder complaint, and that if Italy do make it to New Zealand later this year, she will bring the curtain down on her career thereafter.

Should Andrea Di Giandomenico’s charges fail to reach the promised land