Considering it’s 16 years since an English club won the Champions League, Germany, France and Spain, who have produced all the winners between them in that time, might quibble with the notion that the Women’s Super League is the strongest in world football. The United States would, no doubt, make a case for its own National Women’s Soccer League too.
But with close to 100 of its players on World Cup duty during the summer, considerably more than any other league, and with a third of the 30 nominees for the 2023 Ballon d’Or playing in England, the WSL is, at the very least, right up there.
For that reason, it’s no small achievement for the Republic of Ireland to have 12 representatives at WSL clubs on the eve of the new season, which gets under way on Sunday.
That’s one down, though, on the last campaign, with Ruesha Littlejohn and Grace Moloney now playing in the Championship, Diane Caldwell moving to FC Zurich and Megan Campbell released by Liverpool.
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The three newcomers are Chloe Mustaki with her newly promoted Bristol City side, Heather Payne, who joined Courtney Brosnan at Everton after completing her scholarship at Florida State University, and Jessie Stapleton, whose move to West Ham brings their contingent of former Shelbourne players to three, with Izzy Atkinson and Jess Ziu already there a year.
Two other players on the move during the summer were a pair of Megans, Connolly and Walsh both finding new WSL clubs after being released by Brighton, Connolly joining Mustaki at Bristol while Walsh’s arrival at West Ham takes their number of Irish representatives to four.
The remaining Irish quartet in the WSL are Liverpool’s Niamh Fahey and Leanne Kiernan, Manchester United’s Aoife Mannion and a promising young one by the name of Katie McCabe. Despite the best efforts of champions Chelsea to sign the Irish captain back in January, she is still at Arsenal and is in talks with the club about renewing her contract, which ends next summer.
How many of these players will get regular game time? There’s the rub. Having that many players at that level will be no small boon to Vera Pauw’s successor, but not if they’re kicking their heels on the bench most weeks.
The two goalkeepers will both be up against it, Brosnan having to, at best, share duties once again with England hopeful Emily Ramsey, while Walsh will have to compete with Australian number one Mackenzie Arnold for West Ham’s goalkeeping slot.
The rest of the West Ham crew will face their own challenges. Jess Ziu is still on the comeback trail from the anterior cruciate ligament injury she suffered 11 months ago, while Stapleton’s pre-season has also been interrupted by injury. And after making most of her appearances from the bench last season, Atkinson needs to drive on to get more minutes.
Stapleton’s progress will, perhaps, be the most fascinating to watch. A hugely gifted and versatile player, she was first called up to a senior home-based training camp by Colin Bell when she was just 13, Pauw giving the 18-year-old her debut last year. There are high hopes.
Fahey, Kiernan and Mannion, meanwhile, are all battling to overcome injuries that have played havoc with their pre-season efforts, Fahey likely to be out for up to two months after suffering a recurrence of the calf problem that threatened her World Cup participation.
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And after missing almost all of last season with a knee injury, Kiernan is still on the mend. But she’s back training, and manager Matt Beard says he’s hopeful she’ll be available soon, while conceding “we’ve just got to be careful with her”.
Mannion is possibly the only Irish WSL player to have been as unlucky as Kiernan in the injury stakes, but United rate her so highly they gave her a new contract in July despite her suffering two ACL injuries in just over two years.
Mustaki and Connolly should, though, get plenty of playing time at Bristol, and will, you’d suspect, be hellbent on defying the doomsters forecasting that the club will limp back to the Championship just a year after leaving it.
Battles ahead, then, but the doughty dozen will provide no shortage of Irish interest in the WSL season ahead.
