An episode from Women’s Football Weekly – Fifpro exclusive interview

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HiPod fans, Max here.

We're about to drop an episode.

Drop is a funny word for these.

Anyway, put an episode of the Guardian Women's Football Weekly into your feed.

Hope you enjoy it.

We've got an exclusive interview with two FIF Pro representatives, Sarah Gregorius and Alex Colvin, and Netherlands international Meryl van Dongen.

They explored the current scheduling issues affecting the women's game, the impact of overloading, underloading, disparities across the league, and the impact that has on players.

Plus, they discussed all the weekend's action as the conclusions of the WSL and the UEFA Women's Champions League come towards a close, including that amazing win for Chelsea over Barcelona.

Here it is.

Enjoy it.

We'll be back tomorrow.

Hello, I'm Faker Others, and welcome to the Guardian Women's Football Weekly.

We have a slightly different and slightly longer episode for you today, as well as all our usual chat on the past week's action.

We'll be focusing on player welfare with increasing concerns over the women's football calendar.

We'll bring you an exclusive interview with representatives from the global players' union FIFPRO, who, alongside Netherlands defender Meryl van Dongen, will give us their views on how the number of games elite athletes are playing is impacting them on and off the pitch.

We'll also discuss an inspired Champions League win for Chelsea, Manchester City retaking the lead in the WSL, Arsenal securing European football, Palace on the brink of lifting the championship, and Lewis being relegated.

All that, plus, we'll take your questions, and that's today's Guardian Women's Football Weekly.

Women's Football Weekly is supported by Google Pixel, the only phone engineered by Google, an official mobile phone of Arsenal Football Club, Liverpool Football Club and the England teams.

Google Pixel is working with the FA, Arsenal FC and Liverpool FC to close the visibility gap between men's and women's football with the formation of Pixel FC, a collective of next-generation creators and presenters dedicated to covering the women's game.

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Well, good afternoon, Susie Rack.

A much later recording for us for a lovely change.

The SJA's Women's Sports Journalist of the Year, Susie Rack, alongside me as always.

Have you had a good week?

Looking forward to something a bit bit different?

You cannot do that every week.

You cannot do the SJA Women's Sports Channels of the Year every week for a year.

I will like,

I will lose my mind.

I'm good.

I'm good.

I'm buzzing back from Barcelona, so you know, it could be worse.

I know.

Well, that looked wonderful.

And by the way, I am going to do that.

It's just every week I'm going to ramp it up a little bit more.

One week we'll have a little bit of fanfare, just like a clap, you know, behind the scenes.

Producer Silas will do that.

Another week we'll have trumpets, you know, all sorts.

Don't you want to do that?

Get James on the drums.

Get James on the drums, absolutely.

Susie's son is an absolute whiz with his drum kit.

So, yep, we will have all of that.

Don't you worry.

52, 52 of them, or however many we've got left until next year when you're reigning champion, I think.

Listen, we have a really important pod to bring you today because scheduling across the women's game has become a significant issue in recent years, with managers, including England's Serena Viegman, raising the issue of potential burnout for players.

On the one hand, the physical and mental demands on athletes playing at a high level domestically and internationally are reaching breaking point with very little time for rest between games.

And then in stark contrast to that, the majority of players globally are actually playing too little football with stop-start schedules that have to fit in with the international calendar rather than suiting their domestic game.

And then that's made worse by smaller leagues that are still in their relative infancy and contain less teams, perhaps compared to the men's game, for example.

So the current international calendar expires in 2026, and discussions on what the next one will look like are still ongoing.

We're not going to delve into the details of what that might look like today, but what we are going to explore is how the current scheduling impacts players at all levels and what exactly needs to be done to try and help them.

So with all that in mind, we are very excited to be bringing you an exclusive interview with two representatives of the Global Players Union Union FIFPRO.

Sarah Gregorius is Director of Global Policy and Strategic Relations for Women's Football, while Alex Colvin is head of strategy and research for women's football.

We're also joined by Netherlands International Meryl van Dongen who currently plays in Mexico with Monterey.

Right, let's start with you Sarah.

Hello everybody by the way.

How are we all okay?

Great, thanks.

Doing fabulous.

Excellent.

Thanks for being with us.

Sarah, listen, there's a lot of talk about scheduling pressures on players and the impact it has on them, particularly at the elite level of the game.

Can you give us a little bit of a brief overview of the issues that there are and how exactly FIFPRO are trying to help?

Well, I think you nailed it in your introduction.

What you have in women's football is quite a lot of fragmentation and disparity in terms of professionalisation, which I'm sure is something most of your listeners, as well as you guys, will know about very well.

And that obviously has an impact on the number of games that a particular professional or international might play, depending on where they're from and where they play their football around the world.

So, it is very difficult to come to this discussion with like one uniform solution or match calendar that fits everybody.

I think you need to take in multiple perspectives into consideration and multiple playing groups into consideration, which makes our job at FIFPO pretty interesting because we are there to be the voice and representative of all those players, of all professional players.

But it also makes us such an interesting discussion and a discussion that deserves a bit of airtime on a podcast like the one that we're on today.

So, I mean, in summary, I have been at FIF Pro for almost five years, and I've never seen players and the media take such an interest in what is normally just a governance discussion like they have recently in the women's game around the international match calendar.

So, I think it shows you actually how much this touches the careers and lives of players and how important it is, and how many things that are happening in women's football can be traced back to the international match calendar and the scheduling that happens as a result of it.

Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it?

And thank you again, you know, for choosing our pod to come on and discuss it.

It's really important.

And thanks as well to Meryl for coming on the pod.

You've got a football-related injury currently.

Tell everybody what you're sporting on your right hand currently.

Yeah, I broke my right hand, which is not a related injury.

I wasn't tired or mentally tired when it happened.

But yeah, I broke my hand.

So I got to take some rest for a little while.

But

it's not a season ending and injury.

So I'm positive.

That is good to hear.

Listen, from a player perspective,

how does the scheduling issues affect you?

I'm very glad that you let everybody know that it had nothing to do with the schedule, that you broke your hand.

But what are the other issues that affect you?

Well, I think above all, it's the lack of rest, of mental rest, I would say, more than anything.

So you have to imagine, like, especially on the elite level, when you play in all competitions, so I'm saying you play in the national team, you play in some cup games, some Champions League games, some competition games, and all of the competitions together.

If you're the top, top player and the coach really wants you to play all of those games, you can easily get up to more than 60 games a year.

There are so many examples I can give you what that implies for a life as a football player.

For example, arriving really late from an away game in the middle of the night at 3 a.m., but having to train the next morning doing regen because in two days there's another important game sleeping only six seven hours maybe not hitting those eight hours because your coach really thinks it's more important to have a regeneration training than than to have a good night of sleep or imagine you are a south american player playing in the europe and having your schedule uh with champions league at chelsea for example but then having to fly back to colombia with the hour changes having only two or three days to recover from your jet lag and have to play an important game because the coach doesn't want to rest you.

There's definitely some things are absolutely inevitable.

But with the calendar only growing, I think that definitely to have a 15-year career as a women's football player, it is too much.

Meryl, I just want to add to that.

Do you think there should be more fixed rest periods for players?

And is there enough consideration from a player's perspective when calendars are set, do you think?

I truly believe in a solution like that, fixed rest and that should be the responsibility of the club because in the end the club has so many games i think there should be either a maximum amount of games you can play a year so the coach has to schedule your free free games so if if you're the star player then don't play the game against the last place give your give your player five days off you know so like before the season starts the coach has to already make a schedule and say if i want this player and has a limit of 50 games which games am i gonna give her rest for example

so that a player cannot exceed 50 games.

And to do that, you have to schedule before the season starts, because imagine it reaches 50 games when the Champions League final still has to be played.

So that gives a coach and the club responsibility of thinking about the schedule for one player each.

Or

give a player two weeks of holiday every six months.

I think that those are the solutions after talking to so many people and talking in our national team, the Netherlands,

it's a very big subject, a very, very big one.

We're on the phone with each other about it all the time.

And these are the solutions that we came up with as players and that we also are actually communicating now with FIFPRO and to see if we can maybe drop those ideas at FIFA.

This is what's really important, actually.

And Alex, let me come to you on this because,

you know, it's not just a problem in the women's calendar, it's a problem in the men's calendar.

And obviously, that gets a lot more headlines than the women's calendar does.

But what's different in terms of the women's game and why I mean it's important whether you're a female or a or a male athlete for in terms of welfare but but what specifically is is is the is the difference with women's football?

It's a really important question and I think we're sometimes caught in women's football of just replicating what exists in the men's game.

So there's like a blueprint that's devoid of ideas in the men's game and then they're like, we actually can't come up with any innovative ideas for the women's game.

So we'll just replicate it.

And

often what happens then, because of the embryonic state that women's football is in, so like the professionalization, like what Sarah said before, is relatively new in the kind of more well-developed leagues, England,

the US.

Professionalization is in a newest stage, and therefore the conditions in which players play are actually not enough fit for high-performance athletes and for these games every couple of days.

So, if you're a man, for example, and my idea is always Liverpool because I'm a Liverpool fan.

So, someone like Mo Salah, for example, is one of the highest frequency players, the high-usage players in the men's game.

But then, if you think about the conditions in which Salah rests, recoveries, and then prepares for the game, that's very, very different, like a world away from what the women players are experiencing.

Whether you're at a top club, Arsenal, Chelsea, Barcelona, the standards and the conditions for players are not the same between men and women.

So, that kind of gap that that creates means that women are always in a position where they're not being able to, like what Meryl said, to rest, recover, and the expertise around the players is not again for high-performance athletes.

So, I always give this analogy of like if you're, you know, one of the multidisciplinary teams and support staff and you come out of university and, like, you have got a job at a top men's club and a top women's club, and the salaries are hugely different, of course.

Like any normal human, you'd go for the higher salary.

So, that means there's a quality control issue in women's football, i.e., the expertise around the players is not good enough.

And then the expertise, if you do get the odd couple of medical doctors or data analysts that work in the women's team, and they're very, very good at the jobs, quite often that's used to a stepping stone to men's football.

So it's like this recycling issue that you have, the issue remains the same without any proactive solutions to remedy the issues that women face.

If possible, I'd like to add one really good example to uh to emphasize on this all the guys pretty much every single top level player flies in charters to away games so you drive with your bus you drive to the plane you get in the plane you get off the plane you drive straight home which is great like i i i love it for them but in the women's game most of the teams unless it's like a really important game we fly in economy normal flights So you drive to the club, then the club drives to the airport, there you go through the security checks and you have to be be there for two hours ahead, and then you get to the plane, and then you get home, you have to wait for your suitcase, and then you go back to the club, pick up your car, and go back.

So, like,

and that's like, I'm not saying that I would love to fly in charters, and I understand there's economically a difference between men's football and women's football, and I'm not saying that we are demanding charter flights, it'd be great, that's for sure, but it just gives you an example of our schedules are the same, but the circumstances are different.

I remember you mentioned Liverpool there, Alex.

Wasn't there a situation once where they actually had physios and had proper recovery on the plane when they were in Istanbul or somewhere like that?

They'd played extra time and they were getting all of their treatments on the flight back ahead of a crucial Premier League game.

It might have been after the Super Cup or something like that.

Somebody will be able to tell me specifically, but I just can't see that in the women's game.

As you say, Meryl, you're getting normal domestic flights.

It's very, very, very, very different.

Neither one

is more important, but it's, but it's vital to show the discrepancy, Meryl, isn't it?

Yes.

And besides that, now I'm talking about flying to games, but how often do they go take buses?

Like, so often.

I've been in, when I played at Batiste, we went from Sevilla to Tuadico del Val.

That was a 12-hour bus ride.

And that's only like five years ago.

I think they still do that.

I really think there's still teams in Spain that take 12-hour bus rides because it's cheaper than take planes.

Susie, sorry, you were going to jump in.

Yeah, I was just going to say, I think one of the big issues is that you've got elite men's players having been groomed for like this number of games from a very, very early age.

So when you say, you know, for example, a men's Premier League player is playing double the number of games as the

women's super league player.

So you don't really need to

like worry about the number of games women are playing.

They're playing so, so few less than the men.

The reality for the women's players is they've not been groomed for elite level football and playing three days a week from from like the age of five or six in the same way that men's players have.

So there's this like discrepancy in the development of the game and the calendar expecting a lot more physically than the bodies are able to take.

I think that's a huge issue as well.

Yeah,

there's lots and lots of different issues and it's very difficult to compare men's and women's football from many different ways.

But let's focus back on women's football specifically.

And this problem of having summer and winter calendars in different leagues across the world is really significant as it is in men's football additionally but Meryl mentioned jet lag as one issue but there's much more to it that than just that.

Sarah what would you say is most important in terms of an increased alignment maybe to improve the situation?

How do we get to that point?

I think it's really important.

I mean, we are talking in women's football about quite a small number of leagues overall.

So if you can get a reasonable amount, even the maximum amount of alignment possible, it is to the benefit of the players because then it is easier to regulate rest and recovery across the board.

Otherwise, you're having to wait for domestic conversations to take place and hoping that there's like a really strong industrial representative of the clubs, of the league, of the players, and that they can all come together and have a strong working relationship so that they can derive some of these solutions at an individual sort of domestic level.

If you can get maximum alignment across the professional leagues, in particular with regards to start dates and end dates, it's easier to have collective solutions that benefit all players globally and relatively equally.

So I think because we're talking about quite a smaller, relatively speaking industry, I think there is more opportunity for people to come together and try and have innovative, proactive solutions that get ahead of these problems emerging in the future where you see just a lot of competing interests and less likelihood of everybody sitting in a room and talking to each other.

And obviously there are limitations to that due to climates, due to seasonal challenges.

But I think in as much as we can, because you're probably talking about really eight to ten professional leagues, we should work hard to make sure that there is alignment between them.

So if you're a national team and you've got players who play in Spain, England and the US for example, you can actually say, okay, we're going to do this with the upcoming international window because we know that this group of particular players have all experienced like quite a congested part of their seasons because all of the seasons are relatively aligned.

Therefore, we're going to do X with this international window instead of doing Y.

So I think you're able actually to find more of those solutions, but I think solutions individually, but also solutions collectively, because you're all sort of singing off the same hymn sheet.

So yeah, I think in as much as it is possible, it is important to get alignment across the board.

And I think, you know, we're still, as it's already been said on the podcast, professional football is still in its infancy.

So, if you can start doing some of that work now, it will set a much healthier precedent for future discussions.

Alex, Europe has dominated this discussion a little bit recently, particularly with this July window causing so many issues with UEFA scheduling competitive qualifiers in a majority of the players' off-season.

That's garnered criticism from a lot of people, including England's manager Serena Viegman.

Obviously, it's a very Eurocentric view of things.

And as Sarah said, it's a lot bigger than that.

And alignment would help solve some of those issues a little bit.

But what do you make of the situation that Europe is facing and the players in Europe are facing this summer?

I think because of the development of professional women's football in Europe is much more accelerated, if you like, in a more concentrated continent.

And you've got the historical club competitions like the US League.

and UEFA are probably the most proactive confederation for women's football development globally.

So, I think there's like a bit of a melting pot, if you like, of acceleration, product, i.e., like the game is very, very good.

What that means is that actually, because of all those like surround and factors, if you like, in the nucleus of that is the players and they're being pulled from pillar to post.

So, I think obviously, UEFA's decision to put a competitive fixture in the July window obviously went down very, very badly with players and coaches.

And anyone who understands and comes from an understanding of player welfare at the heart of any decision.

So, I think Europe is unique insofar as they have an international club competition with the Champions League, they have a really developed qualification process for the World Cup, they have a very established UEFA European Championship.

And so, like, those kind of high-usage players are mainly concentrated in Europe, so they are the ones feeling the absolute backlash of these decisions that are made by competition organisers such as UEFA.

I guess, not to throw shade on UEFA, but I think what would be really important is that when governing bodies say they're making player-centric decisions, a player voice is centralised in that, and that before decisions are made, they should really take into consideration how it will really implicate the players, not just like in the season to come, but over you know, over many seasons.

And we did some modelling, for example, on a couple of the players, both in Europe and outside.

And someone like Aitana Bonmati, by 2027, she's nearly playing 70 games a season.

Without doing the modeling on the individual players and then club to club, national team to national teams, and getting really holistic pictures, you don't really see the implications.

You just see, oh, great, we're introducing new competitions, and that's seen as like development.

But actually, growth, i.e., growth, doesn't necessarily mean better.

We should actually just be thinking of improving existing competitions, increasing job opportunities for professional women footballers without like overloading players and players really feeling the impact of that most heavily.

And Sarah, I don't know if you've got anything to say on that actually, because you've probably got some interesting thoughts.

The only other thing that I would add is the July window is interesting because England are playing Sweden.

Sweden are in season.

So even within like that example within that window, if you're a player playing in Sweden, you've got no problems with the July window because it's smack bang in the middle of your season.

And actually,

it's not as disruptive.

It would be more disruptive to have that sort of at the end a fixture of that magnitude to be played in January, February, or November, December.

So I think even in that small example, you can see the challenge because, of course, if you play in the WSL, that's a hugely problematic window for you.

But the opposition in Sweden, it's smack bang in the middle of their season, and they're quite used to that.

Like their season is hugely disrupted by the placement of the World Cup, for example.

So it goes a little bit back to what you said earlier about alignment, Faye, but I think Alex has nailed it.

If you have a player-first mentality, then you put that particular window and that particular decision from a competition organiser well under the microscope.

So, what about the Olympics?

Because obviously, you know, having competitive games scheduled so close to a major tournament, as you say, is going to benefit some of the competitors within the Olympics because

they're in full flow, if you like, but be a massive hindrance to others.

It's a bit more of an existential question on the purpose of and the role of the Olympics in the match calendar overall.

It's a 12-team tournament, only 18 spots on the roster per national team.

It's not aligned with, obviously, really the international match calendar more broadly, and it's certainly not aligned with the men's competition, which has 16 teams, is an under-23 categorisation.

So, I think the Olympics, in terms of how it fits overall, I think if you look at how women's football has developed over the last 10 years, in particular, I do think we need to reflect on the role of the Olympics overall.

Obviously, I come from New Zealand, and the Olympics is hugely important, not just from a competitive perspective, but also from a funding perspective.

A lot of

sort of local Olympic committees provide funding to sports that would otherwise be under-resourced.

That was certainly the case for and is the case for New Zealand, it's another access to a different type of funding.

For a small to medium member association like New Zealand football, that's hugely important.

But I think as we continue to grow, and as Alex rightly says, we have to look at what we mean when we say growth.

Sometimes

having more of something doesn't necessarily mean that it's better.

So we have to look at quality over quantity as well.

But I think without getting too nerdy on the Olympics, because we have this discussion a lot I think it's it's a challenging and existential question on its role in women's football particularly in the future I think once we get beyond 2028 in particular yeah that's interesting isn't it that you know there are comments of whether it goes a similar direction to men's football within the Olympics in terms of it being a younger maybe under 23s

focused tournament but but again you know when we talk about women's football being in its infancy particularly in other places around the world.

It's something that maybe is a discussion for further down the line.

Meryl, I just want to focus on underloading with you, actually, because there's been a lot of talk about overloading of players across the game.

Sarah mentioned their

quality over quantity, but there isn't as much focus on the kind of underloading.

Can you try and explain from a player's point of view the challenges that that presents?

And what's it like out in Mexico, which is a really growing league at the moment?

Well, in Mexico, actually, we are overloaded.

So Mexico would not be an example of underloading because in Mexico, what they do is they have a competition, a very large competition of 18 teams where they play two full seasons in one year.

So you have one season from January until the end of May, and then another season from June, end of June until December.

So actually, Mexico is one of the countries that

I love it here, but there's one big problem, and that's the calendar here in Mexico.

Even if you're not on a national team, like I've been talking to my teammates, there's no holiday here.

And especially because they're adding the Summer Cup now in the summer with the NWSL teams between Mexico and the United States, there is no rest.

And I've even heard last year from my teammates that they weren't able to go home for Christmas, for example, because the season started on the 7th or 6th of January and they weren't allowed to go home.

Mexico would not be an example of underloading, but I do see the issue of underloading.

But I do think that underloading in the end is always easier to solve I think because it's always easy to find some friendlies you know the only problem with that is that it's friendlies and you want to play high level games you want to develop the game of your team but in the end there's always some extra clubs that all that are also underloaded so if those clubs could find them find them amongst each other they could definitely have a quick solution for that the only the only thing is like when you're not playing champions league or you're playing in brazil or colombia competition or in asia even then obviously it's like you don't you want the competition like that too

so i do i do think it's it's not as easy to solve the problem i understand fifa too like it is not as easy because you want to take some competitions out or you want to give some other people's rest but you don't want to give more rest to people that want more games So definitely is complicated, but I think, like I said, it's easier to solve under,

like when they're underloaded.

If you think about overload affects a very small proportion of players, it's around 30% of the overall playing community, like overload or high-usage players, maybe even less.

So I think there's a big 70% of players who don't play enough competitive football, and that's problematic for the development of the game overall.

When you say don't play enough, what would be an ideal amount of games a year?

What do you?

So there's, I don't think there's like, from our perspective anyway, like not an ideal amount, but it's, it's so that, for example, players last year in the FAWSL had four months without any competitive football.

They are international footballers who play, you know, international football, but they also play in the FAWSL.

The league's only small, it's only 12 teams.

So if you compare, like, Ancedo always uses this and it's a good example.

If you compare like a men's Premier League player and it's got 20 game, 20 teams and then the FAWSL players, we've only got 12 teams.

Obviously, like underload won't be an issue for non-international footballers in men's football.

But in women's football, if you've only got a very small league and then you don't go very far in the league club or the FA Cup, then you're hitting like 22 games a season.

I don't think anyone can really develop from that, even like a club in terms of its commercial development, in terms of bringing players in.

There's lots of like offshoots of problems that emerge from like the issue of underload.

So I don't think there's like a, and Said, I don't know, like we've we've discussed this load and we don't know what like a perfect amount of games would be, but we do know that underload affects more players generally in the industry.

So it's when we think about the calendar, you get caught a lot in the like really cool stories or like the sexy stories of your life of like the players who are massively overloaded.

And I think part of that is because it's an easy comparison to men's football.

Underload doesn't exist in men's football.

It's a very women's football specific problem.

And I think that that is really where the nuance and the narrative exists and really the innovation needs to come to think about competition expansion in terms of like um league size in terms of like number of quality teams relegation promotion closed leagues all of these different like components um to think about underload but I do know it's a problem that affects a large proportion of players and I don't think it's considered enough from competition organizers perspective.

It's interesting that you say there about sexy stories and there's definitely a narrative when it comes to ACLs which we're which we're going to discuss in a second.

Sorry, Meryl, carry on.

What the problem is is also the coaches because sometimes they add a really cool pre-season camp

and those games they should play with the people that didn't go to the big tournaments.

But what do coaches do or what do clubs demand or what do sponsors demand of such a big tournament is that the big names play.

So it's also a responsibility of the club, like play those friendlies, play all of those other games that are not important or preseason play them with the players that that didn't go to the big tournaments so if you're an everton and and you have those four months off because maybe you didn't go so far in the fa cup and then you have those four months get get all of the players that are not international players to play a friendly or a really cool tournament with other players that didn't go to the friend that to the big tournaments and so it if everybody just a little bit more creative and think about the players that do play in all competitions i think that is what i said why i said like a little little bit more creative and we can solve that problem.

Well, I mean, the creativity also,

they have to, I know that they're thinking commercially.

I know what they need to do.

But I mean, Arsenal going to Australia postseason is a prime example of this.

And unfortunately, they're not going to think creatively because all they're going to want is to have their star players playing in a tournament like that.

Susie, you had a point.

Yeah, Sarah, I just want to ask you, in an ideal world, what you think a player-focused, holistic approach to a calendar looks like?

Because I think that's the key question, right?

Is less, you know, we've got all these problems.

What would, in your minds, like a positive player-focused calendar look like?

Well, I start with telling you a little bit about what happens at the moment.

So, because I also think it's worth pointing out the international match calendar is a framework, and then different competition organizers populate that framework with international tournaments, confederation-level tournaments, international club competitions like the Champions League, and domestic competitions.

So, everyone, if you think of it as like a pie, everybody takes a slice of the pie, and some people get access to that pie earlier than others.

FIFA can take the first slice because they set the framework.

So, they say, right, we're going to have a World Cup, potentially a Club World Cup.

We're taking these two slices.

Confederations come in next, they put in their championships, any international club competitions.

Do you know what I mean?

So, everyone just sort of like eats away at this.

What we're saying is, before anybody touches the pie,

there are certain moments that cannot be touched.

Those are the protected rest periods for players.

So you can take your bites from the pie, your slices from the pie around those times, but not into those times, if that makes sense.

Because when you're talking about overload and underload, sometimes it's not just about the number of games.

It's about when those games are scheduled.

It's about where you place the different competitions.

Because if you just look at the international match calendar on its own, it's actually all right.

If you just look at your domestic league competition it's actually all right if you just look at champions league it's actually all right it's when you put them all together that it becomes an absolute like bunfight it becomes really terrible so

before anybody chips away at the space on the calendar lock in the rest lock in the rest for for leagues that run over a traditional european winter and lock them in for leagues that run on sort of the opposite calendar of around march to october november and then place the competitions around that and then the other principle that you need to keep in mind, which is a little bit what Meryl was saying earlier, and particularly important when you're talking about issues related to travel, is there is a limit to the number of back-to-back matches a human being can play.

There's only so many times that you can get up and play within 48 to 72 hours of game after game after game.

We call this appearances in the critical zone.

So if you've got a limit on back-to-back games and you've got set rest and recovery periods, you put the rest of the competitions around that.

So it's flipping the way that we approach this framework different to how we approach it right now.

And I think if you start with that in mind, you end up with a pretty relative figure for the number of matches because it's just there's only 365 days in the year.

So you just end up with a figure.

And then I think you also begin to address underload because, in situations where you have a limited number of teams in a league, for example, at least those matches are being placed consistently.

Because what we see, particularly with global leagues, is you'll get a high concentration of matches at this point in the year, and then

eight weeks without any competitive fixture, that's also an injury risk.

Because if you're not kept at a condition that allows you to compete, it's also as much of an injury risk as if you're over-conditioned and you're having to compete all the time.

So I think that is the approach that we would certainly advocate for at FIF Pro.

And I think it would just really change the dynamic around this conversation and would require a hell of a lot more collaboration than what we're seeing at the moment.

Let's talk ACLs.

You know, we talked about the kind of sexy narrative that is around earlier on.

And Meryl, we've kind of seen and are still seeing a huge number of ACL injuries across the women's game.

And it always raises an eyebrow, particularly when a high-profile player picks up this particular injury, which is multifaceted.

But does overloading and underloading kind of feel like a significant contributing factor to it i think so i did mine honestly uh in 2013 when i just came back from playing in the united states came back to the netherlands for an international camp and in this on the second day was uh was i i tore my acl so obviously it's very hard to statistically prove that because of the calendar, women are tearing the ACLs.

Like, I don't know if that's already proven, but it is true that we see so many ACL injuries lately, especially of the players that we are talking about.

They're overloaded.

I think ACL though is a problem that's been there all, all forever.

Like women just tear the ACLs more often than men, I think the way we are shaped or whatever.

But I do want to emphasize on the fact that all of the research that's been done is mostly on the male body.

So, and all of the best, best, best medical teams, they're probably what Alex said, they're probably in the men's football.

So it's like if we take everything in consideration, the way the conditions of our travels, the amount that we play, the rest that we do not get, and then to go all year round, because that's a point that I think we haven't said too much.

Because if you're listening now and you're not a football player, but for example, you're a handball player or you're an ice skater or any other Olympic sport, then most of the time what you have is that you go for really, really hard training for a while, but then there's also a long off-season.

But football nowadays, it literally goes from January to December, and that for every like for years and years and years.

And women's football is growing so much that the career is not now only five years, how it was maybe 20 years ago, but the career is now of Fiviana Mirama, or even my career, it started when I was 18.

I'm 31 now, and I still would love to play some extra years.

So we're talking about 15 years

of football from January to December.

And then, as a woman, where there's not done enough research of why we tear our ACLs, I think that just has to be, there has to be a connection between the number of ACLs and the schedule.

Yeah, it's interesting as well, because like one of the things you were talking about earlier, this issue of travel, it's one of the things that Emma Hayes pointed out as

being an issue that she had noticed or a pattern that she had noticed in players suffering ACL injuries.

Sam Kerr.

did hers straight after the winter break.

Viv Midemer did the same, like it was coming off an international break and then going back into club you know obviously there's many many reasons why they happen but you know it's interesting that there's some kind of like sly pattern there alex you've been working a lot on the issue of acl injuries like from your point of view how much does scheduling play a part of that like how much does it feed into it yeah i think like i don't want to be alarmist about this whatsoever because i think there's we've got to approach this with caution.

Like Merrill said, six percent of all sports science research is done on women.

So that means there's a massive 94% done on men.

That means like we don't have enough information on what are the factors that contribute to ACL injury and other serious injury as well.

What's happened is that high-profile players have done their ACL.

Those injuries are multi-factorial.

But I think the most alarming thing and the thing that I guess we probably need to recalibrate on is women are two to six times more likely to do their ACL injury.

And that figure hasn't gone down some from when they started recording ACLs in 1990.

So we know that the existing mitigate and injury reduction programmes etc or the training that we're doing and the information that we're gathering is not sufficient enough to it be able to reduce the number of ACL injuries.

So I think rightly so players, high profile players have called for more research.

This is absolutely essential.

We need to do very gender specific research and then we need to consider holistically the multi-factorial injury that is ACL so they are things like the most obvious things like what you've just said Susie like the calendar some people are doing research on football boots for me these are quite superfluous I think what's really important is when you're talking about Viv or you're talking about Meryl or Sam or whoever

automatically and this is the the alarm bell for me was when Leah Williamson did a ACL injury and straight away again no no criticisms of the media but everyone said it's Leah's workload lead is not even in the top 20 players of most games played so i think once you zoom out a little bit and then start to think about well what is the we know what le's workload is but what are the unknown factors we don't know what our training loads like we don't know what the support staff are like at arsenal what facilities they have what access they have these really conditions based questions uh we can just put a question mark to them because we don't know now

rightly so players are calling for more research and that's really really important.

But I think we've got to be quite like strategic on what we can actually affect and the very basics of football.

What are the minimums in place for clubs across the world?

They don't exist, minimum standards in leagues.

There's licensing criteria in the FAWSL that we know clubs do not meet.

And that is very, very problematic because when you think about the quality of the game, and I always think about this, like there's been exponential growth of women's football, so there's an exponential inverse on the graph.

The support staff is more of a linear regression, so, like, there's a linear line if you like across the graph.

If we're doing an imaginary graph, that's from top to bottom, that gap is where players are falling through, and that is where ACL injuries are occurring, and other injuries as well.

And then we know when women do an ACL injury, they're more susceptible to doing a second ACL injury.

So, I think this like holistic, balanced picture needs to be presented.

It needs to be critically analysed.

And there needs to be collaboration from multiple stakeholders, not just saying like, like Sarah always says this, it's like that Spider-Man meme when it's like, it's your fault, it's your fault, it's the calendar, no, it's this, it's workload, it's that.

And then it's like, no, actually, again, with the player voice at the centre,

what are the things that players are experiencing day to day in their clubs?

How do they change when they go to a national team environment?

What are the gaps that emerge?

And how can we remedy and mitigate that by collective and collaborative ways of working?

It is like a very nutshell, non-nutshell way of looking at it, I think.

Yeah, I mean,

one

important point on that, ACL injuries cost money.

They are a huge cost to our industry.

They cost sponsors because the high-profile players that they build their campaigns around all of a sudden don't appear at World Cups or at Euros or in high-profile matches.

It's a cost to the player.

What you lose by not being available for almost a year of your career, hopefully, you have a 15-year career like Meryl, but we know, like, we did research in 2019, which says the average woman's football career is like five to eight years.

So, if you take a year out of that, what you lose as a player hasn't been quantified yet, but we certainly know it's something.

So, I think,

yes, everything does come back to money,

but injuries cost money.

They are taking money out of the pockets of players, out of the pockets of sponsors, out of the pockets of clubs, national teams, because it's about player availability.

And we're not going to have the best players available all of the time if we don't look at why this is such a prolific injury for women's football players across such a long period of time.

Meryl did hers in 2013.

I did mine in 2009.

Don't think it was, obviously, no one was building campaigns or anything around me, but you know, it has been around since women have been playing football.

So I do think

when we talk about costs, we're talking about a reactionary cost rather than like, what are we losing?

What are we leaving?

What's the money that's being left on the table?

Because we're not looking at this properly and we don't have greater player availability across the board.

Yeah,

it's so, so vital.

The ACL point is a massive part of this conversation.

But I just want to leave the final word on all of this, rounding up the whole thing to Meryl as the only current player on the pod.

What do you want to see done

in terms of scheduling in the future?

Yeah, I want the people that can actually make decisions, that means FIFA, UEFA, and every single coach that in the end decides who is going to be in the starting 11, to take in consideration the players' mental rest above all.

Because it is not easy to never have holiday and just keep going and keep going.

And you want to play those games, of course, like everybody wants to play those games.

And it's amazing the life of a football player.

Everything is amazing, really.

But if you do it for so long without holiday, just like any other job, when it gets too much, you stop enjoying it.

So I really, really hope that all of the people that can actually make decisions, I cannot tell my coach when he puts me in the 11 and say, no, I don't want to play today.

So I don't have that decision.

It's not in the hands of the players.

It's in in the hands of FIFA.

It's in the hands of UEFA and it's in the hands of all the other trainers and coaches that make those decisions.

And I really, really hope that they're taking into consideration that we need holiday, some good rest between games.

Yeah, it's really vital.

And, you know, conversations and pods like this are really important to keep the conversation relevant and make a lot of people who perhaps are fans and supporters of the women's game aware of what's going on.

Because sometimes it's easy just to focus on the footballing side of things and the fandom side of things, but there's a lot more going on in terms of the growth of the game going forward.

It feels really bad.

I really want pie after Sarah mentioning a pie, and I also really want to watch Spider-Man as well after Alex mentioned that.

Listen, it's been a real pleasure to have all three of you on the pod with us today.

Thank you so much for taking the time out.

Take care of yourselves.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Thanks.

Bye.

Just to let you know, we have been in touch with Wafer.

This is the statement that they've given us.

The introduction of the Nations League and the new European qualifiers format was a significant step for women's national team football to counteract the beforehand existing sporting imbalance and to optimise the use of international match calendar windows by replacing friendlies with competitive matches.

This change was desired and approved by all European national associations, and it was clear from the beginning that 18 match days are necessary to play this competition.

Thus, every window in the FIFA international match calendar had had to be used.

The FIFA Women's International Match Calendar is a framework of dates set by FIFA that represents a compromise between all needs and constraints from global football stakeholders.

It's the very basis for Confederations competitions and domestic leagues planning.

Look, Susie, it's really important to say, which everybody mentioned within that discussion, that the whole scheduling process is mediated by FIFA.

There are loads of different organisations and stakeholders involved, and they all say that they're prioritising player welfare.

But of course, there is a balance between that and the need to grow the game globally.

What are your thoughts on what everyone's had to say?

Yeah, so it's a really difficult question, isn't it?

Because

there's just so many facets to it, right?

There's so many competing interests.

Confederations have all their various competitions to insert into the calendar.

Clubs and leagues, you know, want to insert a certain number of games into the calendar.

There's the Winter League, Summer League.

All of of these things are competing.

So they all go into this melting pot that FIFA coordinates and sort of has to come out with a solution.

And I think it's going to be really difficult to get everyone happy.

But for me, the key has to be that the player perspective is central to that, which is why it's been so great to have FIFA on to chat about some of these issues because the impact on the players is paramount.

Obviously, you want top-level competitions, but you're only going to have top-level competitions if you have happy players.

So making sure that that is the case is vital.

But yes, it's not an easy problem to solve.

Yeah, it's a really fascinating discussion, and we really want to hear your thoughts on what everybody's had to say on the calendar.

That is it for part one, though.

Next, Sophie Downey is going to be joining us, and we'll look at an eye-catching Champions League win for Chelsea and the latest updates from the Barclays, WSL, and Championship.

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Welcome back to part two of the Guardian Women's Football Weekly.

Producer Sophie is with us.

How are you doing?

I'm very good, thank you.

Fascinating first part, I think.

So, yeah, excited to get going.

Absolutely.

I'm fascinated to hear what everybody else has to think about it.

It was a really interesting discussion to take part in.

And it's been a really eventful weekend, actually.

Let's assess the Champions League, shall we?

The semi-final first legs did not disappoint.

Historic win and an extraordinary comeback set up two mouth-watering finales next weekend.

Barcelona, as you'll know, have been Chelsea's Champions League nemesis in recent seasons.

The only team standing between them and the only trophy they've never won during Emma Hayes' tenure.

But the Blues travelled to Spain on Saturday, knowing that they had to keep it tight so they could have something to fight for at Stamford Bridge next Saturday.

And they more than delivered, didn't they?

Earning a historic victory and subjecting Barcelona to their first home defeat since February 2019.

It finished in the end, Barcelona-Chelsea won with Erin Cuthbert's 40th minute strike proving to be the winner.

And it was the first time Chelsea have beaten the current European champion, Susie.

Emma Hayes afterwards afterwards reflected, you know, everything has to be perfect for you to get close to winning a game of football against them.

We took our chance.

How impressive was that performance?

Incredible.

Like, it was just

such a well-orchestrated plan.

And I think, like, you know, yeah, you have to be perfect to get close to winning a game of football against Barcelona.

They got as close to perfect as you can get, right?

There was the mistake for the penalty, which was luckily ruled out for off-side in the second half.

But other than that, like you've got to say that just as a collective performance with a game plan, it was superb.

There was just something to the way they were just so much more street smart than they were, I'd say, last year in the same games.

They were just, you know, they knew they couldn't concede early, which has sort of been their downfall in the final

or, you know, say against Arsenal last year in the Conte Cup or against Man United in the semi-final of the FA Cup this season.

Like, they concede early and they struggle struggle to get back into games and go on to win them against top, top-level opponents.

But this was a real clever, astute performance with some real street smart to it.

They frustrated Barcelona.

They time-wasted.

They, you know, went down under every challenge.

They were slow.

You know, Hannah Hampton would like fall on the ball every time she collected it so that it was, oh, I've got to get up before I can kick off the game again.

You know,

I need the time to gently get to my feet and, you know, like just real street smart performance that was so impressive for me that I just really enjoyed.

And it was really satisfying because, you know, Barcelona and Spain are perennial time wasters themselves and like proper into like kind of getting under the other team's skin and stuff.

And it was quite nice to see that go the other way.

But I just incredible, incredible performance.

I just felt lucky to be there to see it.

Yeah, street smart is a good way of putting it, actually, Susie.

And she did get the game plan spot on, Sophia Mahays, didn't she?

she's known for her tactical acumen but a shift to a back three really helped nullify barcelona's threats they had just one shot on target which is not the barcelona that that we know which meant that chelsea went and got the job done but they did so much more than just that didn't they Yeah, I think all across the park it was, you know, spot on from Emma Hayes and all of the preparation they've obviously been working on towards this game.

This is the game, I think, for Emma Hayes.

Well, this one and the return leg next week, you know, it's the one trophy, as you said, that has eluded her in her time at Chelsea.

And Barcelona have been that kind of figure for so long.

And I do think, you know, the way that the back three worked,

it's not like there were any surprises from Barcelona.

We know what they're about, right?

We know the talent that they have.

We know what Caroline and Graham Hampson can do down the right, and Itana Bomati can do in the middle, and the strength of Frida Lena Rolfa and the running that she has, and all of the different pieces aren't surprises to anyone anymore.

It's just how do you stop them?

And I think the way that she used the three at the back, but especially with the wing backs, you know, Johanna Wright and Canerid, that was one of her performances of the year.

I think she's been brilliant all year, but the way that she tracked back and just kept running and running and running.

And in the first half, she had a lot of space to work in when they turned the ball over and had those opportunities.

But in the second half, it was just a real dogged, energetic display.

She wasn't letting anyone get past her down that side.

And then on the other side, the combination of Niamh Charles at the kind of left centre-back role, and then

Ashley Lawrence in the left wing back role.

And Ashley Lawrence can offer so much in the forward areas, but she also provides that defensive cover.

And when you're facing Caroline Graham-Hampson, which in my opinion is definitely up there alongside a Tannibal Matty as the best player in the world, and to completely nullify her for pretty much 90 minutes, yes, she had got through occasionally, but there was always an extra player behind her or in front of her.

So, if she beat Ashley Lawrence, well, then she had to deal with Neve Charles.

So I think it was spot on and it also meant they were able to crowd out the midfield area.

So Bon Matte and Akira Walsh weren't able to utilise their strengths as much as possible.

And I know some people will say Barcelona weren't at the races, it wasn't their best day and it wasn't.

But I think the energy and application of the Chelsea team, you earn your own luck in life, right?

And

when you work as hard as they did and run as hard as they did for the entire 90 minutes against a team who are considered, quite rightly as the best team, club team in world football, then you deserve your moments where the rubber of the green goes your way.

And I think the best example may be Alexia Puteus's miss with the final kick of the game.

You know, that goes in 99 times out of 100 or 9 times out of 10, but it went wide.

And I think that just shows that you do earn your luck on the day.

Yep, you certainly do.

And you mentioned a few players in there as well, Soph, but big plaudits as well to Erin Cuthbert and Myra Ramirez as well.

But Jess Carter deserves all the plaudits she's currently getting.

Susie, was that her best performance for you in a Chelsea shirt?

Yeah, I mean, massively.

And you contrast that with her performance at the 2021 final against Barcelona, where she was really, really exposed.

And you thought, oh, God, is this the end of her Chelsea career?

Before it even really got going, it was like that bad and difficult for her to even be sort of in the game in any real sense.

I mean, I thought all the backline were brilliant.

Like, the wing backs were great.

The trio in the middle, Niamh Charles, Jess, and Skadisha Buchanan were all superb, but she was like the architect of things in the middle.

Like, she was totally like pulling the strings.

And I just, you cannot underestimate or understate the impact of limiting a team to one shot on target across a course of the entire game that has not failed to score since April 2022, right?

Like, and that one shot being a limp effort, like in the 96th minute, like deep into injury time as well.

So,

just dominating performance at the back that just stopped them from even getting a shot away on target for the overwhelming majority of the game was

hugely, hugely impressive.

Yeah, look, they piled on the pressure, didn't they, in the second half?

Barcelona, they had a penalty decision overturned by VAR.

Sophie mentioned Alexio Putez is firing wide with the last kick of the game, but the Barcelona players were particularly unhappy with the performance of the referee.

Itana Bon Mati actually accused Chelsea of playing dirty.

She said, we've warned the referee, but it's not up to us if they allow it.

We have to know how to play with it.

What did you make of her comments?

were a bit of sour grapes from my point of view, I would say.

I actually thought Stephanie Frappat refereed it pretty well.

Yeah, she pointed to the spot, but I don't think anyone saw Salma offside in that move until you went to the screen.

So I think that's the point of VAR, right?

To point out those things that you don't see.

I wouldn't have expected her to pick up that offside.

So I think she refed it pretty well.

There were things that went for Chelsea.

There were things that didn't go for Chelsea, and the same for Barcelona.

And yes, Susie was right.

Chelsea, they time managed the game really well.

There was that particular moment, I think, when Hannah Hampton went down.

literally did it in slow motion which made me laugh quite a lot but then there were other moments where you know there were some pretty brutal challenges at times on Chelsea players.

And you think when, well, Jess Carter took a ball to the face, that riled up the crowd, and she had to get treatment because that's, you know, concussion potential.

There was a moment where Nuskin got taken down by Paredes.

That was another thing that riled up the crowd.

She was genuinely hurt.

And I think there were several challenges on Mayra Ramirez that got completely missed altogether.

There was a zamp, well, not a stamp, but a you know, a treading on her foot that took her down.

They were quite physical with her as well.

And she can give it, but you know, there were fouls that she should have got in that respect.

And so I think it kind of evens out across the game.

I just think Bon Matti was hurting at kind of losing in front of their home crowd in that enormous stadium, which is, I mean, I must say, one of the most incredible stadiums I've ever been in, the size of it and everything.

So I think that was the hurt more than the actual what happened on the pitch.

Yeah, it's going to be fascinating at Stamford Bridge, isn't it, on Saturday?

As we're recording, I think there are 25,000 tickets sold and hoping, obviously, to sell much more of that and make it a record crowd at Stamford Bridge.

Susie, last week you weren't particularly hopeful of Chelsea making the final so far.

Predictions going to, you know, Guardian Women's Football Weekly form.

Wrong, but it is only half-time.

And looking ahead to the second leg, do you still think Chelsea won't get over the line or are you more optimistic now?

What do I say?

What do I say?

Because my predictions are bad, so I can't say anything good, can I?

I really think they can do it, but it's like such a difficult task.

I think if they got a second goal, like I would, I would feel really, really good about it.

But, you know, one goal is not a big margin.

Barcelona have like not gone without scoring in a very, very long time.

Will they do it in sort of, you know, back-to-back Champions League games?

It's unlikely, right?

So you need to be scoring.

But I'd say the belief is there, right they've made them look really infallible like fallible and rather than infallible that they've looked for so so so long i'm hopeful that they can do it i think it's doable whether they do it or not i'm not i'm still not convinced whether they will but is that me playing it safe with my terrible predictions I think Sophie, as a Chelsea fan, needs you to be sitting on the fence and getting your splinters because she doesn't want you to jinx it.

I like your thinking.

It's very good.

So final one on this game from you.

Sue has asked, given the great performance and result on Saturday, what do you think Emma Hayes' approach on this Saturday is going to be?

Same starting 11 for you.

How do you see it panning out?

So I'm absolutely fascinated by this question because I've been literally thinking since the end of the game, what would I do?

Well, I'm not a football coach, first of all, but what will Emma Hayes do in this situation?

Because the temptation is to stick, right?

It worked so well.

The way that they nullified Barcelona in the areas that I talked about earlier and the way that they got every inch of that game plan pretty much spot on, you would think you would stick with the same personnel that did the job the first time around.

But I just have a sneaky feeling that Emma Hayes might have something up her sleeve for a home leg and might, with a week to prepare for it as well, might want to change either personnel or system.

I wouldn't be surprised if I saw Guru Writing come in at home at Stanford Bridge.

I think she adds so much down that, you know, in terms of an attacking threat.

And it was maybe a bit of a surprise when we first saw the team sheet that she wasn't in it because she's such an experienced kind of player for that Emma Hayes team.

So yeah, I'm fascinated to see what happens.

I can't tell because the safe side of me would go, stick, stick with what you know worked.

But then the sort of more reckless side of me goes, go, maybe you should try something a bit more wild.

Oh, is she feeling wild, Emma Hayes?

We shall find out.

The other semi-final also served up a spectacle.

Sonia Bonbastor's Leon came from two goals down to beat PSG at the Group Armour Stadium.

It finished Leon three, PSG two.

Paris surged into a two-goal lead through a brace from Marie Antoinette Cototo, but you can never count Leon out.

Three goals in six minutes from Cadidia II Diani, Melchi DeMornay, and Amel Majri ensured a dramatic conclusion.

So if PSG is so close, yet so far from heading back to the Parc de Prance with a crucial first leg lead.

How do you even go about summing this one up?

How did

they react to the result?

I would say it's kind of standard Paris and standard Lyon, both at the same time.

You know,

I've been having conversations about PSG this week and they're kind of the most frustrating team on the planet because of the,

well, one of anyway because they have the players they have great quality within their ranks but they ultimately always fall at that hurdle and then you on the other side you have leon who you know perennial winners of a lot of different things you know they're the have won the most amount of uh champions leagues in in history haven't they so it is kind of um yeah gonna be a really interesting one i don't know how you recover from that you know being so close to taking even a point back to parc de prince But then, in the final four minutes, you can see it again and you've lost the game.

I don't know how you recover from that, but I would say Parc de Prince is a formidable place to go.

The ultras are going to be noisy, and they do still have to remember that they have everything to play for.

And this is one goal, the difference.

Before the game, they would have said, keep it tight.

A bit like Chelsea had said before the game, going to Barcelona, keep it tight.

You lose 1-0, it doesn't matter.

You come back and you have everything to play for.

And they have to keep that in mind, I think, in terms of their mentality going into this one.

Everything to play for back in England as well, with Chelsea beating 10-player Aston Villa comfortably mid-week to return to the top.

Manchester City, once again, had to make sure that they kept up the pressure.

And Gareth Taylor's side did exactly that, leapfrogging the current champions yet again with a stylish victory over West Ham at the Joy Stadium.

It finished Manchester City five West Ham nil, two goals in the first three minutes, left the Hammers with an absolute mountain to climb.

Leila Uabi scoring her first goal for the club before Bunny Shaw scored her 20th and 21st strikes of the league campaign.

January signing Laura Blinkilda Brown bagged her first goal for the club as well while Jess Park rounded off the scoring.

Susie, it is Manchester City's 13th straight victory in the league.

What did you make of their performance?

There's an interesting thing, isn't there, that we've got Chelsea in a good place in the Champions League, Arsenal having won the Conte Cup, Man United or Spurs in the FA Cup final, and City and Chelsea, the favourites for the league, right?

We could end up with a different name on every single trophy in theory, which would be pretty cool.

They're just like so consistently dominant and like machine-like in their approach.

They're nowhere near as good as the City Men's team or as Slick or, you know, as beautiful football as that, but there's...

a lot of similarities in the sort of relentless winning and levels reached.

Don't get me wrong, West Ham were poor, but it's always going to be comfortable for City against a team like that when they've only got one competition to compete for.

Can they win the league?

I think they can.

Sophie seem to talk about her every single week.

And a player integral probably to Manchester City, potentially winning the league, is Bunny Shaw.

She hit her 50th WSL goal, but, and this is the crucial, but, she picked up an injury later on in the game and was seen in a protective boot afterwards.

How much of a worry is that?

I know that Gareth Taylor has downplayed it.

It is a huge worry because you think about what she adds to that front line of City and

I mean what she scored 21 goals this season.

Without her they are you know not the same animal as they are with her and I think it will my one worry with City all season I've been so like impressed with the way that they've played and the way they've got like their form together and the way everyone is pulling together to to get the results that they have and go on the kind of winning streaks that they have.

My one worry has been injury because they didn't buy that many people in the summer.

They bought three in the winter who are very young and you know definitely players for the future.

And then Jill Rawd goes and gets her does her ACL as well.

And I was just always worried, especially that front front three area, if one of them

got injured, what do you do in that situation?

And how do you replace it when it's also so late in the season?

What, three games to go?

There's not a lot of time to try and fix things or work out those kinds of relationships.

And Lauren Hemp played central, I think, yesterday when Bunny Shaw had to come off.

That is an option, but it's still not got the same fluidity right to what we've been seeing from Manchester City all year.

So that's been my one question about them and how they can adapt at that.

Hopefully, she is fine because we want to see her fit in and firing Bunny Shaw in the last stages of the season.

You know, she's the second quickest player to reach 50 goals in the WSL, the quickest being Viv Midamar.

So that's a pretty impressive stat.

And the league is better for her, and the league running will be better to have her in it.

So fingers crossed, she's okay.

Yeah, Jim has sent us in a question.

Tongue-in-cheek, I think.

Next time Bunny Shaw sees Erling Harland around the Etiad campus, maybe she should offer him some private tuition to help him rediscover his shooting boots.

There you go, just putting that out there for you, right?

Arsenal ran out 3-0 victors in their final game of the campaign at the Emirates, thanks to a brace from Beth Mead and a goal from Alessia Russo.

It was a day of celebration with the result confirming European qualification for the Gunners while both Frida Marnum and Viviana Miedemar made welcome returns from the bench.

Susie, European football was always a must, wasn't it, for Jonas Ideval side this season?

Oh yeah, I mean it's the bare minimum really

to be back in Europe.

It's going to be hard on the basis of the players at their disposal to look at anything other than the Conte Cup win and European football as a disappointment, to be honest, because I think we expected so much more from them at the start of the season.

So much more of a league challenge, so much more of a challenge.

Well, in Europe, it was a pretty awful crashing out early doors of qualifying.

I think this season is going to be looked on as a disappointment as a whole.

European football is

like it has to happen.

It just has to because that under Conte Cup is,

yeah, like I say, bare minimum.

Yep, certainly is.

Elsewhere, Everton beat Brighton 2-1 at the Amex on Friday night.

Well, Liverpool added to Bristol City's woes with a 1-0 victory over the Robins at Ashton Gate.

Meanwhile, a 92nd-minute goal from Mayor Letissier ensured that Tottenham only went home with a point in a tool draw at Lee Sports Village.

Now, then, the penultimate weekend of an incredible championship season left Crystal Palace on the brink of becoming champions, barring the most unlikely of goal swings swings going against them on the final match day.

Laura Kaminski's team earned a comfortable 2-0 victory away to Lewis in front of a record crowd at the dripping pan, thanks to goals from Sinead Hopcroft and Molly May Sharp.

With Charlton beating Sunderland by a goal to nil, it was a result that put them in the prime position to lift the trophy at Selhurst Park next weekend.

The Addicts do need a miracle to spoil the party.

They'd need to beat Southampton, they'd need Palace to lose and for the goal difference to swing by 23 goals in their favour.

I mean, to be fair, it is the championship, so it is possible, but probably highly unlikely.

With the title comes promotion to the WSL, obviously subject to licensing approval, which is really key.

We've seen it in the men's game, Gateshead's promotion from the National League into League Two being denied.

I mean, playing an entire season of football and playing and winning games enough to be promoted and then being told you can't make it into the league is is just awful.

Surely that should happen beforehand.

But what's been the key to Palace's success this season and are they ready for the Barclays WSL?

Firstly, I say I don't see any problems in the licensing that I can imagine unless there's a surprise.

I think they've been building up to this.

They went full-time Crystal Palace

and a couple of seasons ago they've definitely been building up for a push to the WSL and they've got the players in there that can provide a really good platform for that.

I think this season they've been relentless.

I spoke to Laura after the game yesterday, and she said that even when they've had bad weekends, of which they haven't had that many, but even when they have lost, they come back to work and they pick themselves up and they fix the wrongs.

And as a group, they do it collectively and they fix it pretty quickly.

And it means it doesn't become long-running problems, I guess.

And you know, when you look at their stats, they scored 55 goals.

That is, you know,

a good 20 goals more probably than most of the other teams in the division.

And then they conceded only 20.

So, they were miles and away scoring more than any other team in that league.

They've got incredibly young, good players.

You know, you look at the likes of Annabel Blanchard,

Elise Hughes, who is the current top scorer in the league.

And they've got so much potential going forward.

They've come through the ranks, they've played championship football for a long time, whether it be at Blackburn or at Palace.

And I think they probably are ready now to be given that kind of leap of faith to play that next step of going up into the top division and seeing what they can do up there.

And

I think that there's going to be players coming in and out over the summer, as there always is when a team is promoted, right?

But they've got a really good chance of giving it a really good shot next year in the WSL with the structures around them and especially around the club.

Yeah, absolutely.

Looking forward to them being part of the Barclays Women's Championship setup.

Unfortunately, with Reading beating Durham earlier on in the day, it was a result that sadly confirmed Lewis's relegation to the FA Women's National League after six seasons in the championship.

It obviously comes additionally amongst some significant change at the club with the departure of both their CEO Maggie Murphy and their manager Scott Booth at the end of the campaign.

Susie, what impact have Lewis had in their time in the second division and what does the future look for a club that has always had equality at their core?

Yeah, I mean a huge impact but not just on the championship, just on like the professional women's game as a whole so so far, because you know, they've been involved in all the sort of the discussions around where the league's going and

board level being, you know, Maggie's been on the Women's Super League and Women's Championship board and things like that.

And they've been really able to put a case for a different kind of football

and fan ownership and what that looks like and

the ethos that comes with it to really challenge the like the status quo, which seems to be a drive towards a Premier League mark too.

So, like, they've been a really important part of the ecosystem for a good long time and then performed on the pitch for you know like really defying expectations for far longer than i think anyone expected six seasons when you know you've got clubs going into that league um with players on you know kind of full-time professional contracts in some cases or significantly more than what lewis have been able to offer in many instances at the very least so like really they've punched above their weight for a significant period of time and i suppose that's a thing that they've got to,

you know, kind of look forward to when they go into this sort of new era for the club in the National League without Maggie at the helm and Scott Booth as manager because the ethos of the club, you know, and like all the things it's built on and the fact that, you know, it's got fan ownership at its core will hopefully keep it on a good path moving forward, even with those departures, you would think.

It's just how strue they can stay to those principles whilst they go through this change.

I will just also add that they are a very, very special football club.

I was there yesterday and, you know, not many clubs would be able to get a record crowd in for a team playing, you know, what is essentially their second last.

I mean, they kind of, the odds were against them.

to avoid relegation in that situation, especially with Reading's result earlier in the day.

And to be able to get that crowd in to support them.

And there was a great moment at the end of the game when they let everyone onto the pitch.

And you know, there was the kids running around.

And it just kind of was the essence of what the club is about.

The community club, they're a true community club and they've been a real blessing to have, I guess, in the league for the last six years and really, really special.

And some of my best memories in football, my most fond memories in football are being at the dripping pan, you know, that game against Manchester United in the FA Cup a couple of seasons ago.

Such a special day and they're going to be a big loss to the league.

And I hope they can find a way back, and I hope they can rebuild.

But I just wanted to say

a goodbye to a pretty special football club.

Yeah, and a goodbye to Maggie Murphy.

Hopefully, not from women's football, though.

It's vital that we keep her in the game as much as we can.

She's done an absolute incredible job at Lewis.

A weekend of comebacks in women's and in men's football this weekend.

It's been absolutely thrilling, but shout out to Nag, highlighting a big comeback from Wolves in the National League North.

3-0 down with 30 minutes minutes to go against Nottingham Forest.

And Wolves win 4-3.

Performance of the week, according to NAG.

Finally, huge congratulations to AFC Wimbledon, who secured the FA Women's National League Division 1 Southeast title on Sunday, securing promotion to the Premier Division next season.

Well done to everyone there.

Right, thank you, Sophie.

A pleasure to have you on.

Always good to be on.

Susie, I will see you soon.

Yeah, hopefully.

It's been too long.

I've seen more husbands than you.

What's going on?

I'm missing my Susie hugs.

That's it.

And also just finding random cafes for interesting random food and introducing you to

the weird and wonderful world of being gluten-free and occasionally vegan.

Thanks again to Sarah Gregorius, Alex Colvin, and Meryl Van Dongen.

Keep having your say as well by sending in your questions via X or emailing us at women's football weekly at theguardian.com.

And as ever, a reminder to sign up for our bi-weekly women's football newsletter.

All you need to do is search search Moving the Goalposts, sign up.

In today's edition, Amelia Hawkins explores ACL injuries in grassroots football.

Then, on Thursday, Yulia Belas Trendade writes about the Brazilian players who protested after Santos rehired Clyton Lima despite alleged harassment allegations.

The Guardian Women's Football Weekly is produced by Sophie Downey and Silas Gray.

Music composition was by Laura Iredale.

Our executive producer is Sal Ahmat.

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