Skip to main content

Keira Walsh: ‘Everyone’s going to love you or hate you. I had to learn that’

England midfielder on regaining her self-belief, learning at Barcelona and why she still feels like ‘just a girl from Rochdale’

Ask quietly who in the England squad is irreplaceable and the likely answer you will get is Keira Walsh. Sarina Wiegman’s defensive midfielder is the increasingly not-so-secret jewel in England’s crown. It was Walsh’s pass that elicited more oohs and aahs than Ella Toone’s sumptuous finish to open the scoring in the final of the Euros against Germany last year and Walsh’s £400,000 move to Barcelona from Manchester City broke the world record for a transfer fee.

Since that move Walsh has won a treble – La Liga, the Supercopa and the Champions League – and lifted the first women’s Finalissima trophy with England. Yet four years ago she almost walked away from football, the heavy toll of the criticism she faced during the 2019 World Cup almost too much to take. Walsh had looked out of sorts in France, like the youngest of rabbits, frozen in the road, caught in the headlights of the first car they have seen.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/1iW8k9C
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

England booed off after failing against Iceland once more in Euros warm-up

It was a long way from being the triumphant Euro 2024 send-off for Gareth Southgate and his England players at a sold-out and increasingly fretful Wembley. Never mind the result because it was not the main thing, however much it stirred memories of you-know-when against Iceland. It was the performance that raised the difficult questions, the worst one for quite some time and at exactly the wrong time. The home fans, thousands of whom made for the exits before the end, were forced to watch the second half – from about minute 55 onwards – through the gaps between their fingers. And it had not been great before that. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/4ndfQL0
Post a Comment
Read more

Manchester City in title driving seat after cruising to win at Leeds

The title stare-off becomes steelier with each week. Elland Road was at its raucous best and a highly motivated Leeds played well enough to ensure Manchester City rarely neared full stride. Nevertheless the leaders mastered the situation, showing they can win via set pieces when means of higher aesthetic merit elude them. Rodri and Nathan Aké proved the point with goals in each half, garnished later by Gabriel Jesus’ sixth in three matches and a Fernandinho daisycutter, and Pep Guardiola’s delight at the outcome was obvious. This had been a possible banana skin, with the potential leveller of such a highly charged atmosphere; instead City cruise on and Leeds, who are in genuine danger of going down, must seek more viable routes to safety. This encounter had an edge from the outset. It needed to, because the heat had been turned up on both teams. City would have expected Liverpool to achieve what was necessary at Newcastle; Leeds might not have banked on Burnley’s turnaround at Watford...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bins ‘overflowing’ in parts of England as Covid hits collections

Staff sickness in areas including London, Gloucestershire and Somerset leads to waste services being scaled back Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage Bins across parts of England are reportedly “overflowing” with rubbish from the festive period due to Covid-related staff shortages. London, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Buckinghamshire are among the areas where councillors have warned that bin collections are being scaled back because of staff sickness. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3qIHK0C
Post a Comment
Read more