It is rare to do many interviews with a footballer over two parts, but that was unfortunately the case with Everton and Denmark midfielder Karen Holmgaard, such has been the nature of the past few months of her career.

After speaking at the beginning of January about her pathway into football, her career so far, getting used to being on Merseyside without twin sister Sara, and her hopes for the second half of the Barclays Women’s Super League 1 season, Holmgaard suffered an ACL injury just a week after in a cup tie against West Brom, which will leave her on the sidelines for most of 2026, if not all of it.

Once the dust has settled and mental anguish has subsided, Holmgaard is kind enough to call one morning just a few days before her surgery to ensure the interview reflects her current situation.

“It was a big blow for me,” she admits. “I was in the best shape possible, and I was really ready after Christmas to attack the next six months. The future was looking really exciting, so yeah, it’s been a big blow.

“It’s been tough, I’m having my surgery in a few days because there were some things which needed to heal first, but I’m looking forward to getting it done and then can start the work to get back on the pitch.”

The ACL epidemic has become a long and hard-fought crisis in the women’s game, with no easy fix in place to stop how many players are suffering an injury which can keep them out of the game for over a year.

“It is a common thing, unfortunately, so many players go through it. I was laying on the ground and the first thing I remember was thinking, ‘I can’t believe it’, but I can talk with my friends, going through the same stuff, and that’s nice because they have been on that journey, and I can talk about the steps with them. We’re all different, but it’s nice to have someone to speak with.”

A month earlier, Holmgaard’s mood is different. She is in good personal form, but Everton’s first half of the season has been tough.

In the days between our conversations, Everton make the decision to sack head coach Brian Sørensen, the man who brought Holmgaard to Merseyside, and his staff, despite picking up a vital win and ending Sonia Bompastor’s unbeaten start to life as Chelsea head coach.

Holmgaard will also talk about growing up in Denmark, the impact of seeing her country reach the Euro 2017 final just as her professional career was beginning at Fortuna Hjørring, her move to England, her career intertwining with twin sister Sara and how she’s found life since they went their separate ways for the first time last summer.

Check out WFC’s most recent The Big Interview above, and others at our dedicated page - The Big Interview

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A self-confessed “data nerd”, James Hocken is enthusing about his beloved Hull City after immediately picking up on my Yorkshire accent as we speak from opposite ends of the Atlantic Ocean.

“You’ll learn quite quickly I’m quite nerdy,” laughs Hocken, born in Colchester, Essex, but picking up a love for the current Premier League promotion contenders from his father.

“Hull City’s current place in the standings compared to their underlying numbers is one of the biggest differences I’ve ever seen!”

Hocken has worked around data for a decade now, stretching back to a season of work experience for his local club Colchester United, before a move to Norwich City where he worked in the club’s academy, in advance of a stint working for The Football Association with some of the younger age groups.

10 years on, Hocken is now Sporting Director of one of the NWSL’s biggest and most successful franchises – Washington Spirit.

This interview is part of a new ‘Building Women’s Football’ series, speaking to those behind the scenes about the growth of the sport.

Read the first interview with Barcelona Presidential candidate Xavier Vilajoana below…

• #1 - Xavier Vilajoana

It’s a fascinating journey, to go from work experience in the English lower leagues to one of the most recognised women’s football franchises, owned by Michele Kang, and one he reflects on modestly across a half an hour conversation, as well as enthusing about the business possibilities for the women’s game moving forwards.

“I find it very hard to differentiate between what is a result of working here in the USA vs my own personal growing up and developing my own career,” says the 29-year-old.

“I was so young when working in England, but I’ve been here something like eight years now and I’m still shocked even now at the insane level of investment in women’s sport in this country.”

Hocken’s first experience of the women’s game was when he left behind the FA for a job at Florida State, one of the USA’s most successful NCAA college programmes, humble enough to admit it was an “eye opening” experience.

“The college world is still so alien to most people in Europe,” he continues. “I had the pleasure of working in some cool places in England but coming to Florida State and with my English eyes stepping into a women’s university programme and seeing the facilities, the staff, the professionalism, it was insane to me.

“It’s just a different level of investment and it’s allowed a lot of people from the UK to come over here and have a bigger career.”

“There’s still a bit of an old-fashioned mentality the NWSL is like a retirement ground…”

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“Barca is not just a chapter of my life,” is Xavier Vilajoana’s opening statement, and it’s not an inaccurate one.

Vilajoana’s father served Barcelona as a board member for 18 years, while Vilajoana himself played for the club as both an aspiring young footballer, and later a senior futsal player.

He went on to serve as a director of grassroots football, the famous La Masia academy, and latterly the club’s women’s team.

“I have lived this club from every angle,” he continues. “From the pitch, from the stands, from the board room. It’s my path, my passion, my life almost, and now I’m speaking up because I think the club needs a clear direction.”

The 33-year-old is one of three candidates running to become the next Barcelona President, against current President Joan Laporta, as well as Victor Font and Marc Ciria, with the vote set to take place on 15^th March.

Laporta is currently favourite to keep his presidency, but Vilajoana has key plans for the club, especially keeping the women’s team the dominant force of both Spanish and European football.

“Our women won’t just compete; they’ll lead the future of the sport structurally and institutionally…”

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When Pedro Losa sunk to his knees as Tigres celebrated a dramatic Liga MX Apertura title back in November, it ended an almost 10-year wait for a major trophy for the Spaniard, stretching back to his FA Cup success with Arsenal in the spring of 2016.

It was a rare show of raw emotion pouring out, mainly because it ended a gruelling schedule unique to Mexico compared to even some of the top European leagues, but also because Tigres had come from 3-0 down in the first leg of the final to win 4-3 on aggregate against Club América.

But for the man who turns 50 in May, it was about what he’d experienced since coming to Mexico fresh from leaving his role as Scotland head coach 12 months earlier.

“I’m a passionate coach, you know that, but in a different context, because you always live and experience the success connected with the club, and Tigres is a very passionate club,” says Losa.

“The fans are amazing; they show up for open training with 30,000 people and we sold out our stadium for our final. That comes from the ambition of the club, and also my passion for the club, and it’s of course what you build inside with the group of players and staff. It’s been an incredible journey, very quickly, implementing our ideas and game model and everyone’s been amazing. To put that into a Championship is a moment to celebrate, it’s been fantastic. The league is so strong, the level of the teams, it’s become very challenging.

“I have experiences of many countries and I think this is one of the best five, 100%, the players we have here now, some big names, it’s growing very fast and it’s such a developing market. Tigres is ahead of the curve, a reference internationally, and always one to give back the winning feeling to the fans. I could speak for hours about it, but I’m happy you’ve seen all those videos because it was a good feeling. You can win the league, but you have to go through more games, a two-legged final, it’s very tough, as you can see.”

Has it reignited the fire? On the surface, it’s been a tough period since he was dismissed from his Arsenal role in 2017.

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It’s just eight hours until Monterrey’s first game of the new Liga MX season, but new head coach Amandine Miquel is sat chatting about all things Mexico, her new venture in the country’s eighth biggest city, and her journey into coaching.

On the face of it, it seems an odd time to sit down to do an interview, but the 41-year-old Frenchwoman has had enough time to sit and think about things since her abrupt departure from Barclays Women’s Super League 1 side Leicester City just a week before the new English domestic campaign kicked off back in August.

“The game is at 6pm, it’s only 10am. You can’t do much on a game day, it’s out of your hands!”

On her time away from the game, Miquel continues, “You can see it as quick or long, because in this type of job being at home for three months feels like three years.

“We’re used to having something to do all the time as managers, so when you suddenly end up at home you enjoy it for a few weeks and then you get really bored, so this was one of the reasons why we didn’t wait any longer.”

Miquel’s stock had risen via the impressive job she did with Stade de Reims in France that a step up the ladder felt inevitable, and after being linked with several clubs across Europe it was the Foxes who gave her a first shot at managerial life outside of France in 2024.

Her first season was solid if unspectacular, but working with one of the lowest budgets in the league Miquel was very much aiming to replicate the work she’d done in Reims in the English midlands, but the opportunity of a second season was not forthcoming, to the surprise of many.

Given the timing of the sacking coming at a point where games had been few and far between since the previous season ended, she admits she was ready to step straight back into the saddle but wanted the right opportunity.

“The first call to me and my assistant was on day one, but we took the time to see different options. We could have waited longer if we wanted to stay in Europe, but we felt like starting a new season here was a good plan, a chance to organise things, arrive with a foundation in place, and this league was a good option.”

“I’m looking forward rather than being scared of what’s behind…”

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You could easily be forgiven for thinking Jacynta Galabadaarachchi is more than just 24 years old.

Not because she looks it, but because her name has been in the mainstream headlines for a decade now.

That’s not something of a regular occurrence for someone her age, but something the former Australian prodigy quickly grew used to, dubbed the ‘next Messi’ at just 14, while training with several top English clubs before she was even 18.

“I think I’ve been in the limelight since I was really, really young,” says Galabadaarachchi, now playing for Italian Serie A club Sassuolo, her second spell in the country.

“Since I was about 14 or 15, I was really well known back home in Australia, but I’m someone who likes that kind of pressure. Some people don’t like it, but I do, I like the pressure, like being in the limelight, and since I was a kid, I’ve been used to it.”

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Portuguese manager Gonçalo Nunes turned 50 on 29^th May this year, just 12 days after winning a first major trophy as a head coach.

And given it came against Portugal’s dominant side, Benfica, with his comparable minnows in the form of SCU Torreense, Nunes could be forgiven for stretching out his celebrations across the whole 12 days – and more.

For added context, Benfica have won the Liga BPI every single season they have been in it since 2019, regularly compete in the knockout stages of the Champions League, and had won the Taça de Portugal [Portugal’s national cup competition] twice before last season’s meeting with Torreense.

Nunes’s side on the other hand had never even reached a final but did finish best of the rest in the league behind Benfica, Sporting and Braga last season, albeit 21 points off the eventual champions.

But having reached the cup final for the first time in May, Torreense entered as heavy underdogs against a side with experienced internationals from both inside and outside of Portugal.

What unfolded was not just remarkable, but how it played out even more so.

As was expected, Benfica took the lead and while it remained 1-0 for the majority of the match, it appeared the trophy would go back to the heart of Lisbon, rather than the much smaller district of Torres Vedras, 25km north of the capital.

But in the seventh minute of stoppage time, Janina Weimar popped up with the most dramatic of late goals to send the match to extra-time.

It remained the most dramatic late goal for just another half an hour, when Salome Prat scored again in the 120^th-minute to spark wild scenes.

Toreense had beaten Benfica, and Goncalo Nunes was the man who orchestrated it.

“There was a lot of big work that went into it,” he admits, rather modestly. “The only crazy thing that’s changed since is from the outside there is a lot of sensation about what we have achieved, winning the cup.

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Could you guess who the biggest movers were in the latest FIFA rankings without looking?

Probably not.

The answer is Bangladesh, up 24 places, and now on the cusp of the top 100 nations anywhere in the world.

It may seem on the surface nothing special for a nation which has access to the eighth biggest population in the world, but for a landscape which is dominated by cricket and where women’s football has had to very much grow slowly over the years, every baby step is an achievement.

One major step on the journey has been qualifying for the Asia Cup for the first time where they will help down under to Australia early next year to take on the likes of Korea DPR, China and Uzbekistan.

The man who has led them there is Peter Butler, an Englishman from Yorkshire who made close to 500 league appearances between 1984 and 2000 for the likes of Southend United, Huddersfield Town, West Brom and a successful spell at top division side West Ham United.

He’s been in charge of the Bangladesh national team for over a year, and it’s been a turbulent journey so far, and how and why he ended up here is a subject we’ll come onto, but if there’s one thing he’s learned in a 25-year coaching journey which has taken the 59-year-old around the world and back again, it’s to expect the unexpected.

“You just never know to be honest,” says Butler, his thick Yorkshire accent still audible despite over two decades away from home. “If I’ve learned anything…you talk about longevity in football, but you’ve just got to keep things in context here.

“The girls have done brilliantly after a bit of a tumultuous start. It was a job I actually took against my better judgement at the time, I had to change a lot and move players on, I really wanted to bring in a new group of girls and it was an opportunity to create a more competitive environment.”

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“It definitely wasn’t a career choice, it was a travel choice,” chuckles Emily Husband, recalling how she first arrived in Australia nine and a half years ago.

Initially turning up with the intention to do a year’s worth of backpacking like many youngsters from the UK, Husband walked into a coaching job on day one, and nine years later is now the assistant head coach of the Australia national team.

This week, she has returned home for work for the first time since leaving for the USA in 2010, to face the Lionesses as their preparation continues for next year’s Asian Cup.

Over the course of our chat, Husband discusses her upbringing in Yorkshire where she played for Huddersfield Town, Manchester City and Leeds United, why she left the USA for Australia, how she walked into a job straight off the plane, winning the A-League with a brand-new team, working on a farm in the outback, and how she came to get the nickname ‘Jimmy’.

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November 2019, and American winger Caroline Murray has just turned 26 earlier in the year.

After leaving home, she is playing in the third division of Swedish football for Västerås, and while she’s enjoyed a season which has brought 16 goals and 23 assists in just 23 games, the professional career she “dreams of” feels a long way away.

Already in her “peak years” according to many of the clubs she was speaking to, a lack of top-level experience by her mid-twenties made it look like Murray would be condemned to the lower echelons of Swedish football for the rest of her career.

Just under six years on, at the age of 32, Murray has joined United Super League side Sporting JAX, signing her first ever professional contract in one of two top divisions in US football, playing in a league which boasts some household names and coaches.

This is the story of how the dream became reality.

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Things have finally settled down if you’re Aston Villa and any of their players who endured a rough season last time out, looking like they were going to be dragged into a relegation battle.

After a painful defeat to rivals Crystal Palace shortly after Natalia Arroyo had stepped in to repair the damage already inflicted earlier in the campaign, it looked for all the world like Villa were in a major fight to remain in the top tier of English football.

But an incredible turnaround in form saw Arroyo’s side win their last five matches, ending the season as the most in-form team in the league, scoring 16 goals in a run which saw them put five past eventual European champions Arsenal.

This season hasn’t quite continued that momentum, but five points sees Villa sit comfortably above both Liverpool and West Ham United who have both failed to pick up a single point so far in the new campaign.

Central to that has been forward Kirsty Hanson, fresh from a stunning strike against the Hammers on Sunday, and now entering the peak years of her career, the former Manchester United player is pleased with how the team is building.

“Last season was a bit rocky,” she admits. “We had a lot of change with managers and once we got settled, we finished the season very strong.

“It’s about building on that and carrying on as we ended the last one and really taking that form into this season.”

It begs the question, what changed?

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Caitlin Hayes is honest enough to admit she wouldn’t “necessarily encourage” anyone to make a January transfer window move mid-season, but also knows the chance to join Barclays Women’s Super League 1 side Brighton & Hove Albion at the start of this year was an opportunity the 29-year-old couldn’t refuse.

In just over a week the centre-back will be in her thirties, and this is the first time she’s cracked the top division of English football.

While she reflects on a unique journey to the top during our chat, we start with the here and now, as Hayes sits in the team’s hotel during their pre-season camp in sunny Spain.

“I think the biggest point for me coming here is Dario [Vidošić, head coach] has probably forgotten more things about football than I’ve ever actually known!” she says with a wry chuckle.

“That was definitely somebody I wanted to work under in terms of even just learning from him. Doing the January move can be tough just in terms of mentally moving and then joining an already formed team, but the girls welcomed me with open arms and the facilities and infrastructure we have is just something you try and keep up with on a daily basis.”

Brighton remains one of the league’s most intriguing clubs. Every summer the club catches the eye in the transfer market, but after a period of instability and multiple managerial changes, last season was the first they showed glimpses of their untapped potential under Vidošić after signing some quality players last summer.

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Sarah Brasero only turned 21 last week, and that will came just under a week before she could have made her Barclays Women’s Super League 1 debut.

Alas, Brasero remained on the bench for West Ham United’s narrow late defeat to Tottenham Hotspur, but that’s quite rare for someone who has already progressed as far as England’s Under 23s squad, just one step away from Sarina Wiegman’s senior Lionesses, and that’s largely because Brasero has taken on a different looking journey to most.

With Portuguese heritage behind her, the creative midfielder took the decision last summer after experiencing relegation from the Championship with Lewes to head to her second home, signing for Estoril in Portugal’s top division.

One year on, a player who was dropping out of England’s top two elite divisions now has multiple England Under 23s caps to her name and has signed for the Hammers for the 2025/26 Barclays WSL 1 campaign.

“It feels amazing,” Brasero smiles. “It feels like a big step, but also such an exciting challenge. Obviously playing for England I know Anouk [Denton] and Princess [Ademiluyi] which has really helped here and also helped me know the level I’m going to be at.

“The WSL for me is the best league in the world, certainly compared to Portugal, so it’s going to be a good step up for me now and one I’m really excited about.”

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It’s remarkably easy to forget that Ruby Mace is just 21 years old.

Firstly, because her senior career began almost five years ago, so it naturally feels like the midfielder has been around a while now, but secondly because she speaks with such candidness about her career so far, the good and the bad.

The now Leicester City player is speaking just after returning from an injury which not only put pay to her 2024/25 campaign, but also came off the back of winning her first senior cap for England.

With Mace in good form for club and being rewarded by her country, the knee injury in March came at the worst possible time, but the youngster admits it taught her some valuable life lessons to take forwards with her.

“The recovery was quite hard for me personally because I think I got told an initial timeline which was about six weeks and it turned to be nearly five months,” says Mace. “For me to take that information was quite hard and I just learned to know and accept my body was a slow healer and you don’t always need to be disheartened about times being bad.

“For me, it was work through the pain, get back to the best I could be, and in the end, I’m really glad I didn’t rush anything.”

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It may not have been the smoothest summer Liverpool have ever had, but the mood inside their historic Anfield stadium is a positive one, especially for Austrian international Marie Höbinger.

The 24-year-old is entering her third season on Merseyside and didn’t take long to become an instant hit on the red side of the city.

With a new head coach now in place and both new contracts for key players and signings trickling in, the blow of losing star player Olivia Smith is being bandaged, and Höbinger has nothing but good things to say of her two years in the club, city and league so far.

“For me, coming here was just a super positive experience right from the start,” she states. “I just loved it here straight away and that was something I could build on I think.

“The league is amazing; it’s getting better every year as well. Every season is different and like now I feel more settled, more confident, more comfortable speaking the language. I feel like I’ve found a home here now which helps off the pitch, but also on the pitch too.”

Höbinger’s journey so far has been an eclectic one, but it makes her even prouder to have got to where she has, sat inside one of the world’s most iconic stadiums wearing one of the world’s most iconic badges on her chest.

She left behind home in Austria at just 13 to move across the border to Germany where the sport was more developed, heading to one of the nation’s most successful and historic clubs at the time, Turbine Potsdam.

But between 2015 and 2022, Höbinger didn’t just play football in Potsdam, she went to school there too.

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Few clubs have gone through as big a transition as Everton over the past four years.

Rewind to 2021 and the Toffees had invested big time in their women’s team, signing the likes of Kenza Dali, Toni Duggan, Nathalie Björn, Leonie Maier, Aurora Galli and Hanna Bennison, with then head coach Willie Kirk brashly claiming Everton were aiming for a Champions League spot come the end of the season.

Kirk’s season lasted just a mere month as Everton lost four of their opening six matches, sparking an uncertain spell over the coming seasons where only now have they found some stability under Dane Brian Sørensen.

Of the squad which began the 2021/22 season, only four now remain, and one of them is ironically one of a few who arrived four years ago to little fanfare compared to Duggan, Dali, Bennison and co – goalkeeper Courtney Brosnan.

The then 25-year-old joined after a two-year spell splitting goalkeeping duties at West Ham United and did so again with Emily Ramsey on Merseyside, but now she is a staple of the Everton starting eleven, surpassing 50 Women’s Super League appearances for the club, as well as becoming a regular for the Republic of Ireland.

Four years ago, Brosnan was part of the squad which kicked off at Goodison Park against Manchester City, and four years on the club’s historic stadium is now the permanent home of the women’s team.

“I think there’s a lot of excitement around the club right now,” admits Brosnan. “For us, the men, the ambitions of the club as a whole and where we want to go. It’s really exciting, and everyone knows how historic Goodison Park is, the history the men have created there. Now, we can create our own story off the back of the ones we’ve begun to make already.”

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Elísabet Gunnarsdóttir still remembers the day it happened, when a bad foot injury sustained as a budding teenage footballer put her on a collision course with a coaching career which would lead her to where she is today, a week out from coaching at a first major tournament.

As she sits down to talk during Belgium’s pre-camp for Euro 2025 in Switzerland, Gunnarsdóttir is in a reflective mood as she recalls events from over three decades ago, when she was growing up back home in Iceland.

“It was a turning point in my life,” she admits. “I broke my foot, and I was at home doing nothing for weeks. Someone got me a gift, it was a video cassette of technical exercises from the Netherlands, the Johann Cruyff Dutch Football School.

“I immediately saw so many things in it I had missed out on. My first feeling was I felt bitter because I’d missed out on so much, but I learned everything on that video and decided I wanted to develop myself really fast and somewhere along that journey I had the idea to teach it to kids, because I still felt bitter I hadn’t learned any of it from my coaches.”

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Through the 1990s, a teenager Gunnarsdóttir honed her skills as a coach alongside a fledgling playing career, joining Valur in 1993 before heading to rivals Stjarnan in 1995, before heading back to Valur in 1997, but she wouldn’t play beyond 1998.

While at Valur, Gunnarsdóttir joined the club’s youth team as an assistant and played a key role in building one of the best youth systems in Iceland, subsequently being named the countries Youth Team Coach of the Year in 1999.

“It was really nice growing up and coaching in Iceland,” Gunnarsdóttir recalls. “In Iceland, it was a free country, you were never scared to be out in the evening, to walk to see friends or play football until 11pm without your parents checking on you.

“Crime statistics were really low, so I just remember my whole youth was outside playing football, growing up so freely was amazing.”

Gunnarsdóttir’s success soon saw her become the head coach of Valur’s senior team where four league titles in four seasons saw her become part of the national team set up as an assistant for the senior team and head coach of the Under 21s.

At Valur, she took them on an unprecedented run to the quarter-finals of the European Cup, swaying international stars such as Germany’s Viola Odebrecht and Scotland’s Julie Fleeting to the shores of one of the world’s most northern islands.

In 2009, Gunnarsdóttir moved abroad for the first time to coach Swedish side Kristianstads DFF, a move which would kick off a 14-year association with the club and put an aspiring young coach firmly on the European map.

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It’s the morning after the final of the Swedish Cup, with heavy favourites Hammarby beating IFK Norrköping.

But for Wales’s Carrie Jones, now a midfielder for the latter after leaving behind home last year, it’s described as a “surreal experience”. Despite coming out on the wrong end of the result, she still joins me for a chat the morning after.

Because Jones’s story is worth telling, and even she herself is taken aback when I remind her of how quickly said journey has unfolded, from making her senior Wales debut as a 15-year-old six years ago, to signing for Manchester United, joining Leicester City on loan, signing permanently for Bristol City, and now to Sweden and on the verge of a first major tournament at Euro 2025 next month.

“I’m absolutely devastated that it went the way it did,” says Jones, still just 21 years old. “There was so much hype leading up to it, it was a huge game for us, and to lose in my first cup final as a professional…that’s the highs and lows of football.”

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On her journey, she adds, “It’s crazy when you say that’s all happened in six years. It feels a lot longer! I’m grateful for all the experiences I’ve had, to play for a huge club like Manchester United, experiencing those things, even just moving out at a young age, the challenges that come with it, going on loan, it’s helped me in making that move out to Sweden.”

It feels an apt place to begin, because as she alludes to, moving to Sweden was something she’d have likely never gone through five years ago, a much shier character than she is today, even though she admits playing abroad was something she’d always wanted to do.

So, why now?

“I’ve been absolutely loving my time out here so far,” she says. “I wanted to be on the ball, test myself, the Swedish league has a very good history of developing young players. I think it’s been perfect for me, and the club have been great in getting me here. I’ve been enjoying it so much, honestly, it’s been the perfect next step for me really.”

On how the opportunity came about, Jones continues, “I feel like in my career I’ve always wanted to go abroad, and after a tough season with relegation at Bristol City, I started to wonder if it was the right time to maybe pursue that.

“When Dennis [Popperyd, Sporting Director] at IFK Norrköping came in last summer, it was a tough decision at first. You have to consider all the factors in moving abroad, but speaking to him made my decision a lot easier and I’ve had no regrets at all, I’m really glad I made the decision I did.”

After leaving Cardiff City where she was already a first team player at 15, Jones spent the next years of her career in the Women’s Super League, first with Manchester United, then Leicester City and Bristol City, so this is the first time she’s experienced a change in both football style and lifestyle.

“With professional football, there are a lot of similarities. The league is very competitive, every game is a tough game and when you move somewhere new, you’re not sure what each game will bring and it’s been like that here.

“That’s been exciting and something I enjoy, but other than that it’s similar to the UK. The technical level of players here is very good, I’ve enjoyed that so much because like I said I wanted to be on the ball and test myself in that area, but other than that it’s quite similar.”

While there’s an understandable disappointment at the result of the cup final, Norrköping currently sit 10^th in the league, just above the relegation zone, while Hammarby are second and won the league and cup double as recently as 2023.

There is though plenty for the midfielder to look forward to, mainly the impending Euro 2025, which will see Wales compete at a major women’s football tournament for the first time.

“Going to United when I did was huge for me. It was very daunting, I was very shy, introverted. I was so used to just being at home on the farm…”

If all goes well, Jones should be on the plane, a regular in the squads for a number of years now, and she’s aware of how big it is for the team, particularly those who have been waiting some time for this moment, as well as the women’s game in Wales altogether.

“There’s definitely a lot of excitement around it,” she admits. “Thea camp coming up will be huge prep for the Euros, we’ll focus on that first, and hopefully I’ll make the plane for that.

“It’s huge for Welsh football. It’s so special we have such a range of different ages in our team, people at different stages of their career. I think the younger ones really empathise with the older ones, and I was there for the near miss out in Switzerland a couple of years ago for the World Cup, and I was in and out of the previous Euros campaign.

“I feel what the older ones feel and even at my age to be going to a major tournament with Wales is truly special and it’s forged a really special connection in the squad because of it. I think it will be huge for the country and women’s football in Wales.”

Wales is very much where Jones calls home, despite moving to England five years ago.

She grew up in Newtown, a remote town almost smack bang in the centre of the country and a population of just over 11,000 people.

So remote, Jones grew up playing on a farm owned by her grandmother, playing football in the fields with her cousins, but says her journey to professionalism was “quite standard”, despite a unique setting.

“Wales is very rural, there’s not a lot nearby, especially near me in Newtown. I played with boys, there was no girls teams in the area and when I got into the Welsh pathway, I had to travel a lot to be a part of that pathway and train, but the dream was to play for Wales and I was very fortunate my mum and dad supported me so much.

“It was a lot of travelling, balancing school with a two-hour drive north. Then joining Cardiff, travelling to away games in London during exam season was tough, but my parents were so committed. I was really fortunate, but it took a lot of hard work and dedication, it was hard at the time. I hope we leave that pathway in a better place and there will be more girls teams all around Wales.”

She recalls fondly playing in her wellies because the fields were so muddy, but jokes aside believes Wales doesn’t get the credit it deserves for the players it has produced.

“Soph [Ingle], Jess [Fishlock], H [Angharad James], they’ve all been very underrated and I’m excited that at the Euros the world will get to see the kind of talent Wales produces. It’s exciting for us, for those players, and like I said, the whole of Welsh football.”

It was in 2019 Jones entered the English football pyramid with Cardiff City, playing in the FA Women’s National League South, the fourth tier of the women’s game.

But after just one season, Jones had attracted the attention of one of the world’s biggest sporting institutions – Manchester United.

It once again begs the question, how did it come about?

“It was kind of weird how it came about actually,” she chuckles. “I actually went on trial to Liverpool when I was 15, and Martin Ho was there. We had a good conversation, but because it was my GCSE year, Jayne [Ludlow, then Wales head coach] said I could play senior football at Cardiff or Under 16s football at Liverpool, so I stayed at Cardiff because it made a bit more sense and it was easier to stay around the Wales pathway, which was key for me at the time.

“To play senior football was invaluable too, you had to mature into your body a lot sooner, but when it came to finishing high school, it was like, ‘do I stay?’ A lot of girls went to the University of South Wales, but the WSL was getting bigger.

“I spoke to Hayley [Ladd] and she helped me a lot, Martin was also at United then, we had some conversations during lockdown and he knew of me, Charlotte [Healy] knew of me from the youth pathway, so that’s how it came about really. I have Hayley to thank quite a lot for that!”

Jones initially joined the club’s academy at Under 21s level but made her first team debut before the end of her first season, signing her first professional contract after turning 18 in 2021.

In the summer of 2022, she joined Leicester City on a season-long loan, impressing enough that when leaving United in 2023, she earned a three-year contract at newly promoted Bristol City.

But after relegation last summer, Norrköping came along and paid the buy-out clause in her contract, leading her to where she is now, but she’s clearly thankful for all the different experiences she’s gone through in quick succession, and how it’s shaped both who and where she is today.

“Going to United when I did was huge for me,” she admits. “It was very daunting, I was very shy, introverted. I was so used to just being at home on the farm, not used to the city life, and it was during lockdown as well.

“To move my life and live with a new family I found quite difficult, but the families I had were great, they made it a lot easier. But I was shy, I didn’t ask for things, I was just happy to be there, going into a team with Tobin [Heath] and Christen [Press], I’m so fortunate I got to play in a team with them. I looked up to players like that my whole life, grew up watching the USA win World Cups, those experiences at United have definitely shaped who I am today and helped me grow into the person I am today.”

She adds, “I think you’re right; I’d never have thought I’d be going abroad at 21, but leaving home at an early age definitely gave me that confidence. I was so out of my comfort zone at United, now it’s almost weird for me if I’m in my comfort zone! I wanted to test myself in the way going to United tested me and those experiences definitely gave me the confidence to do that.”

How does she reflect on it? We joke it’s easy to forget she’s still just 21 years old, but has the CV of a senior professional, and with another big box set to be ticked in the next month, she’s grateful for the opportunities she’s had.

“It’s been crazy. I still can’t believe now you said it’s all in the space of five years, I can’t believe that!

“It’s been full of ups and downs, football always is. The play-offs vs Ireland was a real turning point for us. I’m so happy we’ve qualified, but I definitely feel like all my experiences…United, Leicester, Bristol, now Norkkoping, have shaped who I am today, and I hope I can be a key person if I’m on the plane to Switzerland.”

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Ramona Petzelberger may be 33 at the end of this year, but there’s a distinct feeling speaking to her that she’s found a new lease of life, after her career was essentially put on hold by an injury sustained just as she was approaching the highest echelons of her time on a football pitch to date.

Now, the midfielder who starred for Aston Villa in the Women’s Super League, captained her country at the 2012 Under 20 World Cup and was on the cusp of a senior national team debut when swapping Villa for Tottenham Hotspur in 2022, is playing for one of Europe’s most interesting clubs, completing her first full season of football since her injury challenges.

The injury itself and the complications which came with it which halted her two-year stay in North London will be discussed, but we start with where she finds herself now, completing her first year with F.C. Como, on the shores of the famous lake it shares a name with, competing for the first time in Italy’s Serie A.

“The life quality here is amazing,” she says with enthusiasm. “I can’t complain about that – or the weather! The project is very interesting. I had some tough years before coming here, so I was just open to a new challenge, to learn a new language, a new culture, and of course to play football!

“I’ve really enjoyed it. There’s plenty to do, there’s been some challenges in the club, but it’s early days in the project and I’m enjoying it so far.”

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If you’re unfamiliar with the Como story, they became the first club to be bought by the well-publicised Mercury/13 group, founded in 2023 by entrepreneurs Victoire Cogevina Reynal and Mario Malavé.

The group aims to own various clubs around the world and establish a firm multi-club ownership business, with the likes of former England international Eniola Aluko involved in the number of partners behind the scenes.

It has put Como on the map, and after the acquisition in March 2024, a full rebrand of the club took place ahead of the new season, and players with international experience such as Petzelberger were recruited, as well as the likes of the Philippines’ Sarina Bolden, Sweden’s Julia Karlenäs and Finland’s former Chelsea forward Adelina Engman.

While Petzelberger isn’t in a position to compare what it’s like to life before Mercury/13, she’s intrigued by what the future holds for a club based in one of Europe’s premier holiday destinations.

“I can’t compare to before, but I would say the structures at the beginning were not that professional, definitely not comparable to the WSL. But since I’m here, Mercury/13 has joined, it’s the first season of a transformation, it needs some structural improvements, but they are very open, interested and invested in how we make things better.

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“I’m good,” says Ashleigh Goddard, with the twinkle of a smile. “I still have annual scans; I’ve got one in May and then another next year to decide if I need more treatment or not. I go about life as normal as I can and just try to get on with things.”

If you are a regular follower of the women’s game, you may already know Ash’s story, but whether you or you don’t, the details are still worth listening to, the details of journey to recovery as stark as they are resiliently impressive.

“After everything, I didn’t know if I’d even be able to use a knife and fork again. It was a huge amount of work, but it was luck my body responded the way it did.

“I try to do loads of things that are expected of me, but I wanted to push myself. I’ve learned how to snowboard, come back to football, won a league with AFC Wimbledon. I’m all about pushing a little bit, and I’m grateful it’s going well so far.”

If you don’t know the story, Goddard tells it with a vividly picture-perfect recollection of events, and while she herself laughs at how “long-winded” the story itself is, it feels remiss to interrupt her recollection in such detail.

So, if you’re unaware, this is Ash Goddard’s story.

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“At the time, I was playing for Crystal Palace,” she begins. “I had just come off the back of a really positive season where I’d been captain and top scorer. We were playing against London City Lionesses and one of their girls came through the back of me, I got hit awkwardly and hit my head.

“The physio, Lyla, wouldn’t let me play again until I had scans. We’d done the concussion protocols, but I was a little bit up and down. I had fuzzy vision, so I went for a scan, and it took quite a while to get the result. There was nothing from that result, but we found something else.

I had an AVM [Arteriovenous Malformation], which is a tangle of blood vessels in the brain where there shouldn’t be. Things just escalated from there, I had a further scan, went through a GP to UCLH [University College London Hospitals] who took this case on, and they found an aneurysm.

“The first thing you do is Google it - exactly what you shouldn’t do! It was seen as rare, but not that rare, not the end of the world, then you look into it more and more people don’t even know they have them. I kind of expected that to be it, I’d turn up and they’d say they’d monitor it, but I went into an appointment, and I was told I had an aneurysm and there was only one course of treatment. They couldn’t go in and take it out because it was too deep, it would have killed me.

“They basically told me I had a timebomb in my head, so I needed an embolization, which had a 90-95% success rate, this was all during COVID-19 as well. I went in thinking I’d be out the next day, but I fell into the 5-10% and had a stroke. I woke up in the high dependency unit, paralysed on my left side.

“At that point, I was so high on all the drugs it was all a blur, I didn’t put two and two together. I look back and think, ‘how did I not realise I’d had a stroke?!’ But when they told me it was like a big surprise to me! I was in hospital for a week, it was COVID-19, so nobody could visit which was really hard for my family.

“It’s hard for them to hear, but it almost helped me, or at least benefited me. I knew it was bad, but by not seeing them and how they felt sheltered them a little bit from how bad it was. There was nothing for me to do except the rehab they told me to do, there was literally nothing else.

“I was so fatigued, and I still have to manage that, I did whatever rehab I could possibly do. Eat, go to the toilet, that was it. There was no TVs, nobody to talk to. When they first told me, it was the surgeon and one of the main nurses. They said they didn’t know if I’d fully get it all back and that for me was the moment I got upset.

“I cried for maybe two minutes because what happened next was the surgeon said they’d call my parents because I couldn’t speak properly. When he left, the nurse told me I’m young, athletic, the more I do the rehab the more likely I am to get it back'. So, it was like, ‘oh, like an injury’, so that’s what it became in my head, ‘do the rehab and it gets better’, so that became quite simple for me.”

Goddard’s situation though was at first bleak, with no guarantee of a full recovery, as she continues when discussing the breakdown she was given and where her arms, legs and face ranked on the hospital’s 1-5 scale.

“My leg was a one or two out of five, my face was a one out of five, my arm was a zero, completely dead to the world, nothing. I got moved from HDU to the normal ward and that’s when the physio started.

“It started nice and slow, pick a penny up, and I’m struggling! My arm was so heavy, it was doing nothing, but she wanted me to visualise doing it. I thought, ‘this woman is crazy’, but the whole point was to build new pathways in my brain. Where they’d gone in was all bruised, so I had to make a new pathway for signals to go from my brain.

“I had to learn to walk, talk, use a knife and fork, and play football again. I did recover quite quick compared to most. My arm took the longest, I had to do thousands of repetitions. I messaged Lyla and said I wanted to play football again, that was three or four days after it happened - and I’m still bed bound! But that was my whole focus. I did the rehab as much as I could, thousands of every movement you could think of, passing, touch, movement, more power, until it started to feel a bit more normal again.

“The physio who came to my house was like, ‘when you’re ready you can train’ and I was like, ‘what?!’ because this was very early. My leg was working better, but my arm wasn’t. If I fell over, I would face-plant! I wasn’t in any pain, the worst that would happen is I’d fall over!

“I contacted Sian [Osmond] at London Bees who I’d known a long time and she let me train with them. I’ll never forget the first session; it was so funny. The first thing you do is side steps and skips and I’d not learned that. I was like, ‘crap, I didn’t learn this!’. But yeah, I kept going, kept learning, practicing.

“They wanted to sign me four or five months after it happened, but I asked them to wait for two reasons. One, though I could do the stuff, I wasn’t massively comfortable or confident, it was a different sensation. Two, my target was six months, so I had time to get confident, I didn’t want to be just a commodity, I wanted to get as close as I could to being good again. They were patient with me, we worked hard, and I was back playing for Bees.”

Incredibly, six months after suffering her stroke, Goddard was back playing for the club she’d began to make a name for herself as a promising youngster breaking through in the old FA Women’s Super League 2.

Goddard was part of a formidable Arsenal youth team and as a child won the well-remembered Wayne Rooney’s Street Striker.

Also established in the England youth teams, all that is long behind her, but the 33-year-old is in no doubt having the target to aim at of returning to the football pitch was critical in her ability to make as close to a full recovery as possible.

“Definitely, 100%. When I was in the hospital there was an Australian lady, a hard nut, she was going around pushing everyone, and by the end of the week was a bit emotional as I was checking out. She said, ‘I’ve never once had to tell you to do something’.

“Usually when something so traumatic happens it takes so long to accept, the norm is very understandably to be really down, but for me the first year was the most important in the rehab, and a lot of people because it takes so long to process spend a lot of time being down about it, and for me I couldn’t afford that with what I wanted.

“The nurse who told me it was like injury changed everything for me. I was attached to so many machines, but as soon as she said that it gave me a target. I do think that was a huge part of it, if I’d not had that I’d have probably been like everybody else, but I’m also very lucky and don’t take it for granted because when I talk about my story, people contact me with stories that resonate.

“I don’t know anyone who has had all three, but most have had one part at least. Can I talk to them? I always make clear my body responded the way it did through luck and I’m so grateful for that, but I put the work in, but I could have done it all and my body didn’t respond, it’s not a one size fits all.

“When I tell the story, I know it comes across as positive, but I know I’m lucky because it could have been different, and I try and make that clear. I got the physio to take pictures of where I was on day one and every bit of progress, even if it was just my finger moving a little bit more, up to when it plateaued and it was frustrating, I can still look back to where I was and appreciate how far I’ve come, that’s one of the best things I ever did. The truth is it got harder mentality a year or two later when I realised I’d gone as far as I could, it was as good as it was going to get, I wasn’t going to play in the Championship again.

“I can see what I want to do, but I can’t do it, even though I’m very grateful for where I have got to.”

Her face came back the quickest and was back to normal she says in around a week, but had to partake in intense face physio to stretch the muscles which had gone tight.

She admits she would “over-analyse” how she looked every day. Her speech is almost fine, but she still has a slight mumble, and her leg came back within a few weeks.

“I was starting to do fast walks. I could do it, it just felt so different. The only way I can explain it is imagine one leg feels twice the weight of the other leg, it didn’t feel like my leg, it’s really weird, but the more I did things the less weird.

“My hands took the longest, and if I show you,” she says, holding both hands up, “my right hand, this is far as I can go, but this is my left hand, and it won’t go any quicker. I have all the movement, it’s just slower, the one finger has never made a full recovery, but it’s nice how many people I meet who say they can’t tell anything has ever happened.”

Was there a moment she ever saw the light at the end of the tunnel?

The moment the London Bees coaching staff pulled her to one side and told her they wanted to sign her for the new season is the one which is etched in her memory.

“I got a little bit emotional! I knew I felt good, and I was fitting in well in a good Tier 3 side. That was the moment I was like, ‘I’m good enough to play’ to ‘I want be one of the best’. I knew I was never going to be the same player again, the higher you go its fine margins, and I don’t have the coordination I had or the reaction time.

“Even now, at Wimbledon winning a league, or QPR, I know myself I’m a split-second slower, when someone hits a cross in the box if it starts ping-ponging you don’t want it to fall to me because I can’t react quick enough, whereas before reacting and quick feet was my strong suit.

“Now, I find it hard to dribble, if I don’t see the tackle coming, I can’t move quick enough. I’ve had to be smarter and change my game, read the game better, my thought process has to start before everybody else. I can win headers from a goal kick because I can see it coming, but if it’s something quick, you just have to hope it hits me and goes in!”

Her recovery has been remarkable, and as she says, she won the league with AFC Wimbledon, something which seemed a world away lying in her hospital bed.

Now, she’s ready for a new adventure, having announced a few weeks ago she will leave current club QPR once the season has ended.

What lies ahead is unknown, but her story has led to new opportunities, ones she never even thought about pre-her stroke, and she’s just simply grateful to have the opportunity to live a relatively normal life while still doing what she loves.

“It’s mad, because I do a lot of talks now,” she says. “The things I do now I wouldn’t have done before. I thought to myself, ‘what’s the most difficult thing you can do which needs coordination? Ok, snowboarding!’ I like to try the unexpected and in a lot of ways my life is better, it made me focus on my career a lot and I’m earning a lot more than I ever did as a footballer.

“I try to use what happened to spread awareness, motivate, and inspire people as much as I possibly can. I’ve always been the person who is grateful anyway, for the hard work it took, the resilience, the people around me and how much my family did for me, they were unbelievable. I couldn’t even bath myself or wash my hair, my mum did it. I had to go back home, I couldn’t drive, I lost everything and had to start again.

“So now I do things I enjoy. I’m not scared to start over, I’m just grateful and enjoying life…I just think, where I came from to where I am, it does change you, it’s so cliched, but for me it was how could something be so wrong when I was an athlete? I played for Arsenal, England youth teams, in the USA, Denmark, how could something so wrong be in my brain?

“If that aneurysm had burst, I was told it would be life changing disability or fatal, so I’m very lucky. Now it's about dealing with the AVM because more aneurysms can form. I’ve had gamma knife radiation, that will take four or five years to work, they need to close it off 100% and top it off. The embolization was only 65% and it needs to be 90%. I’ll always need more treatment, but if we go over, I’m at risk of losing my left side again.

It’s very fine margins, the whole thing has been mad. I tried to join forums and I couldn’t find anyone who had all three things and I think it’s why my story took off a bit and I was on the news and now doing a lot of talks, because there’s nothing to compare it to.

“The side effects of my treatment were a bit mad; I could be in a match and my left leg would go numb, I’m running on the pitch and can only feel my right side, then it will come back. I had intense pins and needles to the point of pain, but it becomes part of the routine. I’d go down, the physio would come on, stretch my legs and by the time I’d walk off it would be fine, and I was like, ‘what the hell is going on?!’ Because of the bruising in my brain, we would react different because we have different brains, so a lot was happening they had no answer for, I had to sort of just manage.

“I wear a medical bracelet when playing football just in case something happens, they need to know what’s happened because by the time they figure it out I could already be dead. When I join different teams they know my story, I go and do a medical and I’m like, ‘I have a big thing to talk about’ and they’re like, ‘ACL?’ and I’m like, ‘nope…’. I think I’ve given a few medical staff a few heart attacks!”

It does somewhat beg the question; was the injury she suffered all the way back at the start of this story inadvertently the best thing that ever happened to her?

“Yeah, 100%, luckiest thing. I’m so grateful, it does change your outlook. I’ve always been quite calm as a person, so when I see people stressing over the small stuff, I’m like, ‘you’ll be ok, it’s not the end of the world’.

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