Liverpool's Zara Shaw has lost enough time. But two ACLs in two years can't stop her

England’s Young Lionesses’ U20 World Cup campaign in Poland did not quite go according to plan. They had one win in the group stage, against Tanzania, before being knocked out by Nigeria in the round of 16. Yet within the squad are players England may come to rely on in the years ahead. Captain Zara Shaw is certainly one of them.

Liverpool supporters will hardly be surprised to see Shaw spoken about as one of the emerging talents in English women’s football. If nothing else, they will remember the final game of last season, when she started at Anfield and scored against Arsenal.

The goal did not change the result, nor did it make any difference to Liverpool’s position in the table. But for Shaw, it carried a different kind of significance. Despite being only 19, her young career has already been interrupted by the kind of setback every footballer fears. She has torn her ACL twice, the two injuries coming within less than two years.

That final goal of the season therefore felt less like an arrival than a small glimpse of what had been delayed for so long. And Lydia Bedford’s decision to take Shaw to the U20 World Cup, and, more significantly, to hand her the captain’s armband, suggested that Liverpool are not the only ones who still see considerable potential in her.

Among the boys

Shaw’s story, as no suprise, begins in Liverpool. She started playing football at a young age for local side Mags, where she was the only girl in a team otherwise made up entirely of boys. It did little to hold her back. Shaw was among the strongest players in the team and, at the age of seven, caught Liverpool FC’s attention after impressing at a junior tournament.

She subsequently joined Liverpool’s academy and has never represented another club. But the path from academy football to the senior team has been anything but straightforward. Over the space of two years, Shaw suffered two ACL injuries, taking away a significant amount of time at precisely the stage when both her club and international career might otherwise have been gathering momentum.

The time you cannot get back

The first ACL injury came in August 2023. The second followed in the spring of 2025 while Shaw was away on international duty with England U19s. Twice, she lost months that are particularly valuable for a young player: training sessions with the first team, competitive matches, the freedom to make mistakes and, perhaps most importantly, the chance simply to become accustomed to the speed and demands of senior football.

Shaw later admitted that one of the hardest parts was watching her teammates walk out onto the training pitch every day while she remained behind in the gym. When she finally pulled on a Liverpool shirt again in April 2026, 414 days after her previous appearance, she needed only a matter of minutes to remind people why the club had continued to invest in her. Coming off the bench in the FA Cup quarter-final against Charlton, Shaw scored the only goal of the game in extra time to send Liverpool through.

From rehabilitation to responsibility

Perhaps more revealing than the goals themselves is what came afterwards. Shaw did not return simply to take her place among a group of young players waiting for occasional opportunities. By the end of the season, she was starting at Anfield and scoring against Arsenal. A few months later, she walked out for England’s opening U20 World Cup game against Canada wearing the captain’s armband.

It makes for an unusual CV for a 19-year-old. For long stretches of her formative years, Shaw was almost invisible, removed from the rhythms of matchdays and first-team football by rehabilitation. Then, within a matter of months, she was placed in a role that required her to be more visible than almost anyone else.

When she signed her first professional contract with Liverpool in the summer of 2025, Shaw spoke about wanting to get back on the pitch and find consistency. After two ACL injuries, it sounds almost strikingly ordinary.