Valentina Donolato already knew what it meant to lift a trophy before making her senior debut.
She was 16 when AC Milan defeated Juventus 3-0 in the final of the 2022 Italian Under-17 championship. Maria Vittoria Cappa scored all three goals, but it was Donolato who received the trophy as captain.
It was not just another title. That Scudetto was the first won by a women’s team from AC Milan’s academy. Much of the squad was also made up of players born in 2006, a year younger than usual for the age group. Donolato belonged to a generation learning how to win while the club’s women’s structure was still writing its first chapters.
Four years later, that captain is leaving Milan to begin her first experience outside Italy.
Logroño United have signed a 20-year-old capable of playing at centre-back or in midfield. She arrives as a free agent after AC Milan announced the mutual termination of her contract on 2 July. The move ends a period that covered almost her entire development and opens another in which she must turn that education into regular senior football in Liga F.
Until now, her career had followed the expected path through the Rossoneri academy.
After winning the Under-17 title, Donolato progressed to the Primavera side and entered Italy’s youth national-team system. In October 2023, she scored the final goal in a 3-0 victory over Northern Ireland that secured Italy’s place in the second round of qualification for the European Under-19 Championship. She had come on during the second half and completed the win with a left-footed finish.
Her progress received formal recognition in April 2025. AC Milan handed her a first professional contract alongside Anna Longobardi, Leda Gemmi and Lavinia Tornaghi, four players promoted from the Primavera team.
In that announcement, the club still described Donolato as a midfielder. When it confirmed her departure 15 months later, it referred to her as a defender. That development helps explain the profile Logroño United have recruited: a player formed in central areas who has gradually moved further back into the heart of the defence.
The step up to the senior side came during the 2025/26 season.
Donolato played her first competitive minutes on 14 September 2025, in a 2-1 victory over Ternana in the Serie A Women’s Cup. She came on in the 90th minute and admitted afterwards that she had not expected the opportunity to arrive that day. She also spoke about the difference between Primavera football and the senior game, and the support she had received from the more experienced players while adapting to the higher level.
She had to wait until 25 January to make her Serie A debut. AC Milan were leading 3-0, once again against Ternana, when Suzanne Bakker introduced her in the 86th minute. Donolato replaced Emma Koivisto and played at right-back during the closing stages.
It was her only league appearance of the season and her second competitive match for the first team.
She had completed every stage of the academy, captained a side, won a championship, represented Italy, signed a professional contract and made her senior debut.
But she still needed to play.
That is what makes her move to Logroño significant.
The Riojan club are not signing a player with extensive Serie A experience, but one whose career has so far been defined mainly by her development. Her arrival is a bet on what she may become, but also an immediate opportunity to discover whether she is ready to transfer everything she showed at youth level into the senior game.
Her versatility may help her adapt.
AC Milan developed her as a midfielder before also using her in defensive positions. Logroño United have highlighted precisely that ability to operate either in central defence or midfield. She is not yet a player defined by dozens of professional appearances or by a single position, but by the possibility of responding to different needs while continuing to find her place.
It will also be the first time she has had to develop away from familiar surroundings.
Donolato leaves AC Milan after joining the club as a child and progressing all the way through its structure to the senior side. She is leaving the place where she learned, became a captain and signed her first professional contract.
In Logroño, she will have to adapt to another country, another competition and a team still being built.
But she arrives with an unusual experience for a 20-year-old: she already knows what it means to be part of the beginning of something.
In 2022, she lifted the first women’s trophy in AC Milan academy history.
In 2026, her challenge is to make a place of her own in Liga F.
