“I immediately fell in love with beach soccer”

Last year she won every trophy in her path but this how Russia’s prolific striker, Anastasia Patrina, rose to success

How much do you know about beach soccer’s Anastasia Patrina? The Russian number ten talks to Beach Soccer Worldwide about her early life and the influences that shaped her career. 

Born on June 26, 1992 in St. Petersburg, Russia, Anastasia had always been a dancer, performing professionally until the age of 16. 

However, the influence of her football-loving parents opened her eyes to the wonderful world of the Beautiful Game.

“Once my dad took me to the match of the FC Zenith and I fell in love with it immediately.” remembers the Russian forward.

Anastasia started playing beach soccer in 2010 and realised that it was her passion straight away. But she was unable to take her career to the next level in the early stages for one reason, which the striker explained herself.

“At the time there were no official beach soccer competitions held in Russia, nor at European level for women.”

In recent years women’s beach soccer may have grown exponentially in its popularity and participation but it took a while for this to happen, and as a young talent, Anastasia would have to be patient. “I had to wait until 2012 to start playing beach soccer when I joined WFC City.”

After waiting for two years for her first chance at competing professionally, Anastasia moved to WFC Kristall in 2014 and finally signed for WFC Zvezda in 2015, where she has been playing ever since.

In a relatively short career, owing to only a recent rise in women’s beach soccer, Anastasia Patrina’s achievements are impressive to say the least…

– Three Russian National Championship titles (2015, 2017, 2018) 

– One Euro Winners Cup title (2018) 

– Euro Winners Cup 3rd position (2016) 

– European title with Russian National Team (2018) 

She’s much more than just a top-level athlete… After graduating from medical university Anastasia is a fully qualified dentist and has been for the past three years.

In 2018, Anastasia Patrina won everything that was up for grabs, and we are looking forward to seeing what this bright star of beach soccer will contribute to the sport over the coming year.