Strong Story

The path to professional football is relatively simple in Europe: players come up through professional clubs’ youth academies where they play for free and then join a senior club squad once they graduate from their academy. In the US, with most professional women’s clubs not having affiliated youth clubs, the landscape is a little more complicated. What does youth football development look like in the United States, and what are the different pathways to going pro?

“I was a rebel.“ These are the exact words Elena Schiavo uses to look back on her extraordinary career. For her, rebellion wasn’t just a pose, it was a necessity. At a time when many in Italy believed a woman’s place was exclusively in the kitchen, she decided to go against the grain and devote herself to a sport that was considered a purely male pursuit. 

Today, on July 29 2026,  we celebrate a birthday of Sweden and London City Lionesses captain Kosovare Asllani. World probably never aprecciated her enough, but in Sweden are children books written about her. And yet she was originally supposed to wear the Tre Kronor jersey. Do you know the story of Kosovare Asllani?

On this day one year ago, July 27 2025, the Lionesses became European Champions for the second time in the row. The nerve wracking finale in Basil was decided in penalty shootout. The national hero once again was Chloe Kelly, who took the decisive kick. Let's recall the 2025 UEFA Women's Euro final.

In 2024, two new clubs joined the NWSL as expansion teams. One was brand new and the other, the Utah Royals, was coming back after initially playing in the league from 2018 to 2020. The Royals’ return to the NWSL was not quite the comeback story they were hoping for: they finished their first two seasons in 11th and 12th place in the table out of 14 total clubs, winning 13 of 52 games across those two years. 

When manager Luis Rubiales kissed Jenni Hermoso after Spain's 2023 Women's World Cup victory, the football world watched in disbelief. One Spain international made a decision that could have cost him his international career for a while. Borja Iglesias refused to represent his country until meaningful change came to Spanish football.

Vivianne Miedema, one of the greatest icons of the current generation of female footballers, celebrates her 30th birthday on 15 June 1996. Let us look back at the story of this generational striker.