If anybody can look again on the yr that was with a glad smile, it needs to be England’s Lionesses. Their triumph on the Euros has been extensively cited as a significant excessive level inside an in any other case, er…testing yr.

A time when pleasure was sparked throughout the nation – even in these not usually discovered within the males’s sport – because of the staff’s sporting success (it was truly coming residence this time) but additionally the symbolism.

So, who higher to entrance Girls’s Well being‘s first challenge of 2023 than their captain, the England skipper Leah Williamson.

It goes with out saying that Leah – who was born and raised in Milton Keynes inside a household of eager soccer followers and who performed in protection for Arsenal within the Girls’s Tremendous League – is extraordinarily gifted on the pitch. At simply 25, she’s a formidable chief and figurehead for the ladies’s sport, too.

A lot in order that she’s tipped (per The Instances) to be named within the King’s New 12 months Honors. That is alongside fellow Lioness and Arsenal teammate Beth Mead (who took residence the Golden Boot at Euro 22 and was additionally awarded European Participant of the Event) and the Lioness head coach Sarina Wiegman.

As befits her place, Leah provides a compelling interview – one thing anybody who watched her impassioned speech on the eve of the Euros closing will know.

In a really totally different setting of a quiet café close to her residence, chatting over espresso (me), scorching chocolate (Leah – she’s not a espresso fan) and various pastries, the Lionesses’ captain is simply as spectacular.

The form of one who provides considerate responses with out oveconsidering. Somebody who clearly values ​​being – and that is an adjective she references typically – ‘actual’.

So, from leveling the enjoying area for feminine footballers to her expertise of crippling interval ache, efficiency anxiousness and even her private objectives away from the pitch, no matters had been off limits in her interview.

You’ll be able to learn the total factor within the January challenge of Girls’s Well being. However, within the meantime, listed here are six issues I realized from having breakfast with the good, delicate and regular Lioness-in-Chief.

1 Profitable the Euros was a fairytale – and the comedown has been actual

Naomi BakerGetty Pictures

‘It scares the s**t out of me if I am sincere that day-after-day for the remainder of my life I’ll chase that feeling. I do not see the way it may have been topped,’ says Leah.

‘The one factor I might like to do is return and watch it from the stands. As the ultimate whistle went, my grandma simply put her head on my mum’s shoulder and went, “She did it.”‘

No, you’ve got bought one thing in your eye.

2 Leah has blended emotions about fame

‘Properly I like it as a result of we will attain so many individuals. Like, women’ mums and dads do not have to look us out like mine needed to,’ she says, of the positives about her new profile.

However? ‘I hate the celebrity and that facet of it. I hate that to get from my automobile to you within the quickest time I have to put a cap on. However if you develop into knowledgeable ladies’s footballer, like, that is your position, it is a joint duty.’



Rosaline Shahnavaz

‘Should you’re not ready to [be famous] you are doing a disservice to the sport and all these ladies who needed to faux to be boys to have the ability to play. I perceive that I stand on the shoulders of these folks.’

A gaggle which incorporates Leah’s personal mum, Mandy, and her footballing hero, Rachel Yankey.

‘I do not need [fame] to alter me. For the previous two years, I’ve solely truly frolicked with folks I already knew,’ she continues.

‘I am not scared of creating new mates, however I will not be held accountable the identical manner that I’d be with my folks.’

3 Leah’s efficiency anxiousness had her wishing away her profession

The draw back of enjoying to your girlhood membership and the nation you like? For somebody as decided to do pretty much as good a job as Leah, the psychological stress threatened to overwhelm her.

‘I really feel like I wanted to win for my membership and my nation, and if I felt that was underneath risk, I might be a wreck. I might have ideas like ‘properly, after I retire, I will not should take care of these nerves’, which is f*cked! Like, I am wishing away my profession as a result of I am unable to take care of my very own efficiency anxiousness.’



Rosaline Shahnavaz

Reduction got here, finally, by way of classes with Arsenal and England psychologist Kate Inexperienced. Her method had Leah feeling again on type inside a fortnight – and he or she’s nonetheless working with Inexperienced immediately. Of her expertise, Leah says: ‘I owe my life to my pysch’.

4 Leah was petrified of endometriosis would sabotage her Euros efficiency

Final yr, whereas out with a hamstring harm, Leah was recognized with endometriosis – one thing that made sense, given the painful intervals she’s skilled for a very long time.

‘Earlier than the Euros I had a concussion, which they are saying can actually influence your subsequent interval, and it was dangerous – like, actually dangerous. You understand if you’re on the lavatory ground and actually like: “I am unable to transfer.” When it is too late to take the tablets as a result of I am, like, in it now.’

She was particularly involved about her endometriosis flaring up earlier than the England vs Norway semi closing.

‘I used to be like, “it can not occur”. Like, I truly will not be capable to play. [Having an endometriosis flare up] is a giant worry if you get to a event not injured…I do not change an excessive amount of round [my cycle] now. Except I am on the ground. After which I am like: “I will not make it immediately”,’ Leah explains.

‘I am knowledgeable athlete, I’ve all the time been like, “let’s get on with it”,’ she says of how she’s handled the troublesome intervals that characterize the situation.

‘However you get to a sure age if you truly say: “it is a actually large fucking downside”. I am fairly certain if males had intervals we’d have discovered a approach to cease them by now with out doing any harm.’

Preach, captain.

5 Leah’s pissed off by how the ladies’s sport has been held again…

…however happy with the way in which her membership has taken sensible steps in the direction of rising parity between the boys’s and girls’s groups.

Of the way in which the boys’s sport was traditionally prioritized over the ladies’s Leah says: ‘It wasn’t how Arsenal had been it was how soccer had been. The boys are right here and the ladies are right here.’

‘And it is like, no shit, as a result of [the FA] stopped us enjoying [ON FOOTBALL LEAGUE GROUNDS] so we had been 50 years behind,’ she added.

‘There is no f*cking shock that you’ve got 60,000 folks at video games and we’ve three…I feel that filters into the membership. It has been like, “the boys are within the gymnasium so you’ll be able to’t go in”,’ she reveals.

However now? ‘Two years on we’re transferring to a brand new facility; issues have all modified.’

6 Leah has developed self-trust – on and off the pitch

The Lionesses captain is a girl with many strings to her proverbial bow – she even has ongoing accounting research on the back-burner. Fittingly, she’s fairly non-prescriptive about her long-term objectives.



Rosaline Shahnavaz

‘[Football] is just not my all the things. To proceed to do that for one more 10 years is sort of a frightening thought. Should you ask me what I wish to be in 5 years, I would just say joyful’

‘I had my plan from after I was a child: I used to be going to get married at 24; I might have a child [at] 26. I actually held on to that stuff,’ she recollects.

However now? ‘I’ve taken all that off [the timeline]. As a result of if it occurs, it occurs. I’ve realized to actually belief my emotions and myself now.’

Precisely as she ought to.