The 23-year-old sporting superstar was signed as a marquee player by Carlton Football Club last July, and made her debut in the league’s inaugural match against Collingwood at Ikon Park on February 3.
“Even now I can’t find the words to describe what it was like on that night,” she said.
“[The team] felt like we were in a really privileged position being able to play that first game, at home as well, and the crowd was incredible.”
The young-gun turned it on in front of a full house of 24,500 spectators, kicking a game-high of four goals and scoring Player of the Week for her incredible display of talent.
Though she was a standout player in a game that will go down in history, Vescio admits that she never expected to see the day that a women’s competition existed in the AFL.
Born and raised in the country Victorian town of Wangaratta, where football is an integral part of life, Vescio began playing with her brother at the age of five.
“I was pretty out there as a little girl and I didn’t mind playing footy with the boys,” she explained.
It was at the age of 14 that the full-forward’s weekends spent playing football came to an abrupt end, when she was no longer allowed to play with the boys.
“When I had to give up footy I just thought that was it,” she recalled.
“I was disappointed but I was playing basketball, netball and tennis at the time and I didn’t realise that I should’ve had the same opportunities as my brothers.”
When Vescio moved to Melbourne aged 18, her passion for football was reignited and she joined the Darebin Falcons in the VWFL.
Despite years away from the sport, it didn’t take long for Vescio to fit right back in, and she went on to represent Victoria at a national level in 2013 and 2015.
She was drafted by the Western Bulldogs in 2014, and played for the club in exhibition matches before the inception of the women’s competition, which features eight teams across five states.
“I’ve been really fortunate to be able to come back into the environment now and be part of the first ever women’s season,” she said.
“It’s a real honour and it’s due to a lot of hard work by many other women before me.”
Vescio is no stranger to the Carlton crew, and got involved with the club just before it was granted its women’s licence last year, working as a graphic designer and designing the inaugural women’s guernsey.
Becoming an overnight hero in her self-designed number 3, Vescio hopes to make her mark by doing what she does best: playing football.
“For me, it’s about doing what I love and showing that even though it’s a male-dominated industry, we’re making a change,” she said.
“All of those young girls out there will become a part of that change in the future, and I think that’s great.”
As if she wasn't kicking enough goals in life, Vescio was this week named an Australia Post AFL Multicultural Ambassador for the second year running.
With Italian and Chinese blood running in her blood, Vescio grew up surrounded by two distinct, yet equally fascinating cultures.
Her paternal grandparents migrated to Australia from the Belpaese in the 1950s, and were a strong presence in her early years.
“We lived about 100 metres away from them so I spent a lot of my childhood at their house with my brothers and we were there pretty much every night after school,” she recalled.
Vescio’s maternal grandparents ventured to Australia around the same time as her nonni, only from a completely different corner of the globe, China.
Having never learned her grandparents’ mother tongues, Vescio explains that growing up she did notice the language barrier between the generations.
“You don’t really think about things like that and you learn to communicate in other ways,” she explained.
“Nonna gives away so much just through her facial expressions; you can almost build a whole story around one lift of the eyebrow.”
Well and truly a representative of both cultural diversity and gender equality, Vescio is excited to see what the next few years hold for the AFLW as more young girls climb the ranks, improving the standard of the game even more.
“I’m hoping that during my career I will see a longer season and we’ll get to play for a little bit longer than two months,” she added.
“But it’s been fantastic so far and I think that Gill [McLachlan] and everyone at the AFL are going in all the right directions to develop it.”
In the meantime, Vescio has her sights set on this Sunday, when Carlton will battle it out against premiership favourites, Brisbane, at Ikon Park for a chance at the grand final.
