I don’t want to come out all firing, it’s too early into 2024 for that and I’ve got a job to do on the pitch, but it is always important to start a new year properly and raise some concerns that I, and other players, have about the women’s game and where it is going.

Sometimes this world of football still manages to shock me. I was shocked when I saw the 2024 international match calendar – and I was not the only one. Many of us have had to compete in back-to-back summer tournaments with the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the European Championship in 2022 and then the World Cup in 2023. This year it’s the Olympics again for some teams, so to see a Fifa window for games in the middle of July was frustrating to say the least. Obviously, some teams will be competing at the Olympics but not all of us. Many were looking at this summer as a summer of liberation – for our bodies and our minds. But no.

A lot has been made about the intensity of our match calendars and the impact on players who are not given a proper environment for the demands of so many matches, yet here we are, ready to play anywhere between 50 and 60 matches, with games to be played in every month of the year. The decision-making is worrying to say the least. I will be told there was no other month for it, but I do firmly believe a good problem solver can find a way around any matter.

I feel these issues so keenly because I’ve been impacted by them. There are many different causes of injuries but if we are overworking players, not giving them the appropriate amount of rest and recovery time, and not providing them with the setup that can match the level of the demands being placed on them physically and mentally, then the risk to player health is increasing exponentially. I had been injury‑free in my whole career, year in and year out, winning trophies and playing to my best abilities. But in recent years I’ve been unlucky with a stress fracture impacting my body. Very few people knew or understood the extent of this injury, what caused it and whether it would impact me long term, yet despite that I have lazily been labelled “injury-prone”.

Any of us could pick up another injury, but any of us could also have a fantastic year ahead of us. This is the goal I work towards every day, and I feel this is something that we, at Lyon, have done collectively and individually for the past few months. This injury period is behind me. I’m tired of being put in a box. There will always be a “it won’t last” caveat to recognition of my form but I’ve stopped putting energy into answering these questions and so should all players.

We know who we are, where we are now, and where we came from. Injuries are an important part of the game whether we want it or not, but not the decisive factor as to who we are. Female players deserve to have the competence and quality around them to help them to keep delivering on the pitch.

At the moment, there are too many variables from environment to environment to blame the players or their bodies for the injuries they pick up. Playing any sport is an injury risk but we are not defined by our injuries. We are defined by what we are able to bring to the pitch and the sport.

Giving players better environments with more competence around them is key. There is a lot of talk about the need for research, and rightly so, but not enough about how the research, when done, is then filtered into the women’s football ecosystem for the benefit of all players. If you really want to see the women’s game grow you must keep players available. Right now, that’s a hell of a challenge. I had to dig deep to lift me out of the injury hell I was in for a short period, getting the right expertise and knowledge, and I was lucky because I had the people around me to help me do that. Not everybody gets that.

On a global level, players need help. We need a better communication between players and governing bodies. We need better communications between clubs and federations. We can’t keep having contradictions in the way things are done. Having a health-expert panel put in place is a great thing, but how good is it for when you’re told you have international games to play midsummer? The stress put on players, physically and mentally, makes no sense. The demands on players and their bodies are growing and, while this is something we’ve all been asking for, the tools are not yet here to deal with those demands.

Will it change? I hope so. We are so damn lucky to be professional footballers. To me it is one of the best jobs in the world. But being lucky doesn’t prevent all of us from being smart. There are, and there will always be, bigger issues to solve in the world, but taking care of one another in our area is a start, and that gives a foundation for us to help greater causes. Football, and other sports, can serve so many bigger purposes.

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