#PFA WSL Team of the Year | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

alexbkrieger13 · 2 years

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Could you do a list of your top Woso couples (for a newbie) please

Magdalena Eriksson and Pernille Harder

Both currently play for Chelsea in the FA WSL

Magdalena

Chelsea Captain since 2019

Is a defender

Plays for the Swedish National Team

2019 World Cup Bronze Medalist

2016/2020 Olympic Silver Medalist

3x WSL champion

2x FA cup winner

2020 Female Swedish player of the year

Has a column for i news

Pernille

Captain of the Danish National Team

Is a Forward

Became the most expensive female player ever when she signed for Chelsea in 2020

7x Danish player of the year

holds the record for most goals by any danish player

3x champions league finalist

4x german champion (2x top scorer)

Absolute Icons with the photo from the 2019 world cup being a landmark picture in woso

Fantastic advocates for the community. Pledge 1% of their salaries to Play proud to educate coaches as part of common goal

Been together since 2014

Ashlyn Harris and Ali Krieger

2x World cup champions (2015 and 2019)

Both Currently play for Gotham FC in the NWSL

Married in 2019 (It was covered in Vogue)

Adopted their Daughter Sloane in 2021

Both have played for USWNT

Ali Krieger

Plays as a defender

Has over 100 appearances for the USWNT

First American to win Champions League in 2008

Considered for many years to be the best right back in the women's game

Ashlyn Harris

Plays as a goalkeeper

Has the most saves in NWSL history

NWSL Goalkeeper of the year 2016

3x NCAA Champion

We're private for nearly 10 years before coming out publically in 2019.

like Magda and Pernille their one of the most visible couples

Ruesha Littlejohn and Katie McCabe

Both play for the Irish National Team

Went viral recently after a match

Very funny on social media

Katie McCabe

Plays for Arsenal

Captain of the Irish National Team

Plays as Left back/left forward

Ruesha LittleJohn

Plays for Aston Villa

Plays as a midfielder

comments on Katies Instagram are amazing

Scottish but plays for Ireland

Caitlin Foord and Lia Wälti

Truly the biggest surprise to come out of the Pandemic 1

Basically, a pandemic hit Lia invited Caitlin to move in with her and yea

Both play for Arsenal

Lia Wälti

aka Wally

Plays as a Defensive Midfielder

Captain of the Swiss National Team

Considered Swizerlands grestest female player ever

Considered one of the most important arsenal signings in recent years

PFA team of the year: 2018-19

Has one hell of a penalty

Loves a puzzle

Caitlin Foord

Plays as a forward

Plays for the Australian national team

Youngest Australian ever to play at a world cup at 16 in 2011

Best young player: 2011 world cup

2011 AFC young Female player of the year

2016 AFC Female player of the year

The first player to be awarded both

Has an adorable dog called Peach

Most private of these couples but offer up gems now and again on their respective social media account

Tobin Heath and Christen Press

Both Play for the United States

2x world cup champions

Anothe Very dedicated fan base

Tobin Heath

Plays for Arsenal

A forward

2x olympic champion (2008 + 2012)

Over 100 appearances for USWNT

Christen Press

Plays for Angle city FC

A forward

Over 100 appearances for USWNT

Kristie Mewis and Sam Kerr

Their lesbians Stacey

Biggest suprise of pandemic 2

Kristie Mewis

Plays for Gotham FC and the USWNT

Is a midfielder

Plays on USWNT with her sister Sam (a different Sam)

Sam Kerr

Plays as forward

Plays for Chelsea and Australian National team

Goal scoring machine

Golden Boot in 3 different leagues

2x WSL champion

Loves a backflip

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theroleofimagination · 3 years

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Does this sort of thing also happen in the WSL? I hope not, but I really don't know.

I mean, I really don't know - I obviously really hope not and there's certainly not been anything (to my knowledge) made public but that obviously doesn't mean it's not happened. EDIT: I'd somehow completely forgotten about Mark Sampson, and the rumours about Bignot and Hayes...

Even so, the NWSL system of drafts, player rights being held by teams, and trades means that players have a lot less autonomy and therefore the managers/coaches/owners of their teams potentially have more power over them than in other leagues like the FAWSL. In most other leagues players go into a contract with a club for a certain number of years (usually 1-3) and once that contract is finished they have free rein to go wherever they want, or their club can choose to sell them or loan them out to another team before their contract is finished but, importantly, the player has to be in agreement with this. Players have a lot more power over their own destiny than those in the NWSL have historically had - things are changing a bit with free agency in the NWSL but not really for the majority of players yet. I think players' lack of power/agency over their careers makes these awful situations much much easier to occur - their careers are often in the hands of people who do not necessarily have their best interests at heart and as we've seen with Riley are capable of really abusing that power.

I also think that given that the FAWSL is run by the FA, which will (I hope) have a lot of policies in place for player protection, it would be harder for managers to get away with this behaviour. You'd hope, but again - who knows! Also, the NWSL Players Association (their union) has only been in existence since 2017, so for only 4 of the 10 years of the league's existence. As such, with no anti-harassment policies and no union to turn to these players really had very few places to turn to for support or representation against abuse/their clubs/the league. WSL players belong to the PFA (the Professional Footballers Association) which is a union for all current and former footballers in the FAWSL, Premier League and EFL. It is a longstanding and powerful union and therefore protects players' rights and represents them when needed. A strong union is so important and it's slightly terrifying that the NWSL players didn't have one for so long - I think partly due to the strange system of having federation players (allocated USWNT and CANWNT players) who are represented by their own unions and all the other players in the league being somewhat separate.

Hope that makes sense, I'm pretty sure this is all right but please do feel free to correct me on anything!

#ask #fawsl #nwsl

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glimmerofawesome · 3 years

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https://twitter.com/KatieWhyatt/status/1386214562974814209?s=19

Great article. It’s a good summary of Fran’s story of how she ended up at Chelsea

Article below for anyone who doesn’t have access

The inside story of Fran Kirby’s move to Chelsea

Fran Kirby had been on Emma Hayes’ radar for years before arriving at Chelsea aged 22 in July 2015.

As Arsenal’s academy director, Hayes had seen a teenage Kirby strut her stuff for Reading more times than she’d care to count. Yet the chase would be ignited by one moment several years on, when Kirby, by then in Reading’s first team, came up against World Cup winner Yukari Kinga.

“She pirouetted on the ball against Kinga and blew past her,” Hayes recalls. “I thought, ‘Well — that’s unbelievable. She’s so dynamic’. I really wanted somebody to bring that type of play to our team, and Chelsea and Fran Kirby are a perfect match. She’s been instrumental in the history we have created here.”

Kirby is now Women’s Super League Player of the Year in waiting and potentially three games away from earning her first Champions League winner’s medal. She should finish this season — which may yet end in a quadruple — with a clutch of personal awards, and it is not an exaggeration to say she is among the frontrunners for the next Women’s Ballon d’Or.

Few players on the planet, other than the one with whom she has formed such a dangerous Chelsea partnership in Sam Kerr, have been able to rival Kirby’s inimitable artistry and verve over the past several months. The ease with which she and Kerr have dismantled WSL defences for sport has propelled their club to dizzying new levels.

This is the inside story of how Chelsea signed her.

Kirby’s stock had been rising for years before Chelsea finally made their move.

Her time at Reading had spawned hefty goal haul after hefty goal haul: 32 in 21 games in 2012-13, then 24 in 16 in a higher division the following season, then 11 in five in 2015. That season included all Reading’s goals in a 4-2 away win over Yeovil and five in a 7-0 swatting of London Bees.

Such prolific numbers caught England’s attention. In June 2014, Kirby became the first WSL 2 — now the Championship — player to be called up to the senior side, coming in for World Cup qualifiers against Belarus and Ukraine. She marked her debut, against Sweden two months later, with the classic debut goal.

“She’d come into the squad and people would be like, ‘Oh, she’s she’s got to be in the WSL at some point — she’s too good’,” recalls Karen Carney, Kirby’s former England and Chelsea team-mate. Two years later, Kirby represented England at the SheBelieves Cup, where Carney was approached by Carli Lloyd, the World Cup winner with whom she had played at Chicago Red Stars. “After the game, she came up to me and said, ‘Who?! Who is that kid?!’ I said, ‘It’s Fran. She’s decent. Keep an eye on her. She’s got a future’. It was just her agility that really caught me: her ability to shift from left to right just effortlessly.”

In May 2015, Kirby was named in the squad for that summer’s World Cup in Canada. England’s first goal in their 2-1 win over Mexico made her the country’s youngest World Cup goalscorer at 21.

The subsequent media frenzy saw the whole world learn Kirby’s story and she was expected to be the tournament’s breakout star.

However, they did not know of the negotiations taking place behind the scenes or the fact that Kirby was balancing her maiden World Cup — a campaign followed by more than 750 million television viewers — with a move to one of the biggest clubs in the world, and had been even before she boarded the plane.

“The atmosphere was pretty was pretty electric leading up to leading up to the World Cup,” remembers John Sorzano, who was Kirby’s agent at the time. “The interest had been there ahead of the World Cup, ahead of the announcements. It (had been) rising, bubbling under. She had interest from Arsenal, offers from Manchester City. They were willing to pay a lot more.”

In the same week Raheem Sterling moved from Liverpool to Manchester City to become the then-most expensive English footballer, Reading announced that her transfer was a British record in the women’s game — a claim Chelsea denied — with the BBC anticipating Kirby could have fetched anything in the region of £40,000-£60,000.

“The fee ended up being closer to £70,000,” says Sorzano. “What makes her transfer really, really interesting is that I remember clubs like City and Arsenal were prepared to go to £150,000-£200,000 for the player. It was different because my experience had been traditionally in the men’s game. To then to see that transition, where the women were being valued at that point — it was pretty awesome.”

Kelly Chambers jolted when news of Chelsea’s offer reached her. As manager of Reading, then a part-time side in the second tier, Chambers had never before overseen a transfer involving a fee.

“At the time, I didn’t even know she had an agent,” Chambers says. “It must have all happened so quickly for her. It was her first-ever England tournament, so she probably had so much going on in her head. It was a shock to us because it came out of the blue for me. I actually ended up getting in our academy manager, Lee Herron, to support me with the process, because he would have dealt with different stuff on the boys’ side of the game and he was involved in the first team here and there. He would have understood the negotiations and the talk that goes on in the men’s game, and with the agent.”

Kirby was Reading’s only full-time player, training with the club’s under-15s boys. Reading did not play in the top flight until the following season. Another year with the academy was all they could offer her, with Kirby continuing to supplement her football career with girls’ coaching sessions for Reading’s Community Foundation. She had been with Reading since the age of eight, enjoying not just success on the football pitch but enduring the well-documented personal battles that ensued following the death of her mother when Kirby was 14 and her subsequent hiatus from football to conserve her mental health.

“For her, it was almost like it was an opportunity where, if she didn’t take it now, would it still be available if we didn’t get promoted?” Chambers explains. “If anything, she wanted a change. She had been with us for so long, and (had) a lot of history in terms of her football, family and everything else. It was probably more for her to just have something completely different in her life that would challenge her differently.

“We did want to keep her and we did put up a bit of a fight, but we were very understanding of what was on offer for her and what we could offer. She could fulfil her dreams of being a professional footballer and it allowed us to build the club a little bit more that season.”

Amid the interest from Manchester City and Arsenal, Kirby plumped for Chelsea. Infrastructurally, there was little to separate the three: all were among the richest and best-equipped women’s teams in the country. Arsenal had the history, built on more than a decade of historical dominance. City had new money, ambitions and a training base worth more than £200 million. Chelsea had never won a major trophy — but they had the deal-breaker.

“We thought she’d be in much better hands with Emma Hayes,” says Sorzano. “She was the catalyst for all of it and still is for many players now. For personalities, she’s infectious. She just gets into you. Her ambition, attention to detail and the discipline she demands — you want to play for her.”

But it meant that Kirby would be entering negotiations with the latter stages of the World Cup looming.

The biggest move of Kirby’s life, and the most significant for an English player since Manchester City hoovered up the likes of Steph Houghton and Toni Duggan in 2013, was running concurrently with the most intense matches of her career. Knowing this coloured Sorzano’s negotiations, with the deal not signed until after the tournament but finalised while Kirby was more than 3,000 miles away in Canada.

“In most negotiations, what you really try to do, especially with a young player, is keep them away from the stress of it,” Sorzano says. “Fran just let go and said, ‘Let me know when it’s all done and what it is’. We explained to her what the process would entail and that, in the end, there would be transparency and she would know what occurred.

“We were obviously transparent, explaining to her what her personal terms were, what the clauses were and all the intricacies of her contract. For the negotiation itself, and feeding back day-to-day updates, we wouldn’t do that because that would just destabilize a player. Especially with the massive pressure of being included in the World Cup squad like that, at that age: all that exposure and all the talk of ‘Mini Messi’.”

That had been England manager Mark Sampson’s nickname for her and he giddily revealed it to the world in his post-match interviews following Kirby’s opening goal in that first group-stage win. She admitted years later that she found it burdensome: it was only reading an interview with her England team-mate Duggan, who lamented that Kirby was never allowed to be just Fran Kirby, that allowed her to see it for what it was.

“It was unfortunate that they branded her Mini Messi,” says Sorzano. “She’s Fran Kirby, and she’s amazing. (With) all that stuff, I think it was important to shield her from the day-to-day hassle of, ‘They’re not accepting this, and the club has spoken’. Really, players don’t need to get involved in that, and neither does the agent. Once the club started speaking, we were just bystanders, rather than inundating her with information that would essentially stress her out.”

Kirby’s move was announced on July 8, joining Chelsea on a three and a half year deal. She went on to her become the PFA Women’s Players’ Player of the Year and the Football Writers’ Association Women’s Footballer of the Year in April 2018. There have followed four league titles, two FA Cups, a League Cup and a Community Shield (she did not play in Chelsea’s League Cup win last year). Last December, she became Chelsea Women’s record goalscorer.

“It gives you hope that you’ve got someone that can dig you out of a hole, at any point and any time,” says Carney, recalling the four seasons she spent playing alongside Kirby before retiring and moving into a punditry career for BT Sport and the BBC. “That’s a sign of a big player. Even as the game’s going really fast or really frantic, when you give them the ball, or you watch them when you’re on the same pitch, it’s like slow-mo. Everything slows down and it’s just implicit trust: you give them the ball and you just know that they can make something happen.”

It does not always pay to make comparisons between men’s and women’s football but one cannot help but feel, to paraphrase Bill Shankly, that Kirby was made for Chelsea and Chelsea for her; even more so, perhaps, given her circuitous route to get there.

Kirby dropped out of the England system at under-17 level. She did not represent her country again until the under-23s. Her club career reads as a run of relentless successes but there have been umpteen injuries in there too: in 2018 alone, her ankle, a hamstring and a knee all betrayed her.

Worse still was to come the following season, with the diagnosis of pericarditis, a heart infection, that ruled her out for more than six months from November 2019. She collapsed at the home she shared with team-mates Bethany England and Maren Mjelde. Cardiologists told her she might never play again, while Hayes reassured her two-time Ballon d’Or nominee Kerr had been signed to play alongside her, despite England having been voted WSL Player of the Year and the PFA Women’s Players’ Player of the Year.

Despite the huge setback, Kirby was not finished.

“This season is probably, for me, her proudest achievement,” Hayes says. “To recover, after what she went through, and to produce even better performances… You have to have unbelievable character to do that.”

Bayern Munich will be the latest opponents tasked with stopping a side containing Kirby and Kerr, in the best form of their careers, plus the world’s most expensive women’s player in Pernille Harder from scoring in the first leg of a Champions League semi-final today (Sunday). To do so would be a first — no one has kept a clean sheet against Chelsea all season — but it is a stake fitting for a competition that will crown new champions this year. For Kirby and Kerr to see their unfaltering excellence rewarded would be equally so.

“Sam will stretch the play; if she doesn’t, there are no spaces for Fran or Pernille,” says Carney. “If someone gets tight to Harder, the space is there for somebody else. When Sam Kerr does that movement in behind, Fran gets that free space to roam and do what she does best. It’s just fluid. The way Emma trains a team is just repetition, repetition, repetition, but there’s definitely a relationship that isn’t actually trainable between Sam and Fran. That’s very rare.

“When she first came onto the scene, Fran was an out-and-out No 9 and I still argue that is her best position. She would sit in between and just spin and run in behind. But she’s evolved, become more of a No 10. She can play off the flanks a little bit more and I still think she can keep improving. She’s in third gear and there’s much more to come, but it’s about not putting pressure on her. When she’s smiling and happy, she’ll go into fourth gear and fifth gear. It’s a process, but she’s improving all the time.

“She’s been through a rough period and has come through it. A lot of people have had to be patient, wait for her star to shine and give her a little bit of respite to recover and be in a happy place. She’s there. She’s a great soul. It’s such a joy to watch her and see her be happy and healthy. That’s the most important thing.”

#Anonymous

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hspn · 2 years

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Sam Kerr is the PFA Player of the Year

Congratulations to Sam Kerr, the 2022 PFA Women’s Player of the Year.

Kerr was also included in the PFA WSL Team of the Year along with teammates Ann-Katrin Berger, Millie Bright, and Guro Reiten. Antonio Rüdiger was in the PFA Premier League Team of the Year.

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rashfordxbruno · 2 years

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First Manchester United player to be included in a PFA FA WSL Team of the Year.

Congratulations Ona! Well deserved. 🇪🇸👑

#manchester united women #muwfc #ona batlle #pfa fa wsl team of the year

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daveycharris666 · 3 years

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Maren makes PFA WSL team of the year, despite missing a chunk of the season!! 🙌🏻

#maren mjelde #team of the year

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kunederson · 7 years

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Every PFA FA WSL Team of the Year since it began in the 2013/14 season. Lucy Bronze holds the record for most appearances having been in every team since its creation. Jill Scott is 2nd with 3 appearances.

#PFA #PFA awards #team of the year #Lucy bronze #FA wsl #fawsl #wsl #*#proud of Lucy

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the-necessary-unnecessary · 4 years

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Well, i rewatch all the games this season and last season and basically if you listen to the commentators (the majority) you can understand it very clear! all they talk about are Miedema and the British players (especially thus season cuz the GB team) and try to hype them during the game (even when they not having a great one). Did you know DvD didn't even won potm with all the stats i mentioned earlier even when she had great games this season (Reading, Tottenham, semi final, Brighton). (1/_)

I have no problem with the hype when it is warranted like with Miedema or others but do it when they have really good games and not say it with every simple pass they make and do it for other players too cuz there is 11 players (when they do a mistake they surely mention it).

Second thing is all the TOTY and so, last season is a great exp. DvD with 11 goal (5th) 6th assist (5th) and with her versatility that arguably saved our ass and help us won the league wasn’t even there (ji, little, erin there with no better stats) and if don't look only on stats you know what she done for the team. you have 8 players there that are British ( Midema, walti and ji) so it's make me think that with all the hype for the British players if DvD was British she defo be there ( i'm sorry i only focus on DvD but she's the best exp and i know here stats). the media don't talk about her, even in podcasts they tend to talk about same players. about sites and social media. DvD is very loved yes but it's more about her as a person (and the fact she's beaut also help to increase the Likes and so) and less about her game, skills and so... (if you go and look before this month in twitter it will look like it's a fan page for Miedema and williamson and i'm not talking only about DvD absence there).

anyway with her achievements last year in club and country, runner up in the WC and her choosed in 16th place in the list of best players in the world always have the feeling that if she was British the situation was different. but not get a lot of attention from the media and so makes me wondering what if she was English ? will the situation was different if for exp it was Nobbs or other English player? Also i agree about Lia but i think that in tha last season she get more hype for her play from the fans (not a lot from the media) but like you said her injury didn't help it. I also think McCabe and Lisa did great job for us this season.(5/5)

In general, I also think a lot of players still get credit for how they played in past years in the league and not only judged by the current season (also they throw stats on you of goals/assist and so without the contexst of how many seasons they played in the wsl). I think now that the league is professional and attractive the best players in the world to her and an international audience they need to decrease all these things i mentioned.

Ahh okay during match commentary is when you’ve noticed it the most thanks for clarifying! I was a little confused about where you were coming from before as I do feel that on sm and newspaper articles daan and the dutchies (that could be a band name or something lol) they get more coverage and attention. However I can agree with you more that during commentary it’s more biased. This might be because the commentators aren’t arsenal supporters but are british so have this bias towards the home nation players, especially with the increased interest in team GB this year, and miedema because who doesn’t know and marvel at viv? However I get the point that it’s neither good for growing expectation’s of women’s football when they’re praising these player’s every pass and making excuses when they do things wrong, nor is it fair or beneficial for other players who may get unjustly sidelined because they’re not the big known names.

The player of the match is interesting also, the stats on who got it and when would be interesting to make a table of as I definitely see national bias playing a part here. Same with TOTY, it’s predominantly british fans (in the BBC one at least) voting so if that’s what they’re hearing about most then that’s what a lot of people will vote for. But as with regards to the PFA one, which I think you were referring to, well that’s voted on by the players themselves so commentating wouldn’t have much of an influence on that

Nonetheless, despite the fact that it is unfair and not beneficial, I also think it’s a global issue where commentators talk more about players from their own nation as they know more about them, connect with them more and will evoke more interest in people watching who won’t necessarily be supporting a particular team. It’s something that should be worked on though as it’s definitely unfair and doesn’t do justice to a lot of players.

I do agree that Daan’s play isn’t always what’s focused on, although I’d also argue that her being a likeable character leads to an extent into people looking at her skills more. I definitely think how people viewed her in England would be different if she was English, but same as how people playing abroad will usually always get less attention. And also it’s true that players are never free from their past performances, for better or for worse this is part of the game. In that survey the FA Player sent round changing up their commentary to start addressing some of the things you mentioned could have been a good point to add in it

#the asks #engwnt #arsenal wfc #danielle van de donk

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