‘Women’s football? No, it’s just football’: Chloe Kelly on being England’s top baller

Returning to Leah Williamson’s situation, Chloe says, “It’s an injury I’ve overcome myself and I believe she has the right mentality. She’s a great, great player, so she will definitely be missed, but it’s the mentality that gets you through these types of injuries.”

As we’re on the subject of self-care, I ask how she protects her mental health. “Getting my headspace right is very important,” she explains. And one of the ways she achieves this is through meditation, specifically practising breathing techniques on the Headspace meditation app. “It’s worked for me massively, before bed especially,” she explains. These techniques also see her through high-pressure moments, such as taking penalties, “Going through my mind in the lead up to taking the penalty [at the Women’s Finalissima in April] I think ‘just breathe’. As I was stepping up, that’s all I did, I was breathing. And I just thought, “I’m going to score.”

When she’s not playing football, Chloe tells me that she unwinds by spending quality time with her boyfriend, Scott, watching foodie TikTok videos and working through colouring-in books.

While I leave her to enjoy the rest of her GLAMOUR cover shoot, I wonder what teenage Chloe would have made of all this, and does she have any advice for her younger self? “Be yourself in every moment possible and just work hard,” she says. “You never know when someone else is watching.”

In the Lionesses’ first game of the World Cup, they held off Haiti last Saturday for a hard-fought 1-0 win. Chloe Kelly and the team return to the pitch on Friday 28 July to face Denmark. And yes, we’ll all be watching.

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