Exclusive! Man Utd captain Katie Zelem: 'For me it wasn't that simple' | OneFootball

“A huge thing for me is inspiring the next generation,” says Katie Zelem.

“I used to watch a lot of men’s football and if you were to ask a lot of girls who play now, or maybe women a little bit older, a lot of their heroes growing up were males just because female football wasn’t accessible back then.

“I was looking at the likes of Wayne Rooney, Paul Scholes, people like that.

“Now I’ll see girls and boys walking around town with the name Zelem on the back of their shirt.

“That’s more special for me than some of the things we do when we’re playing and you know they can look up to you, especially the girls, they can see a clear pathway to become a professional footballer and walk in someone’s footsteps.

“For me it wasn’t that simple.”

There will perhaps be no better opportunity for Zelem to inspire the next generation than next summer when England hosts Euro 2022.

The pandemic delayed Zelem’s international debut but the midfielder has been involved in recent England squads and has her first cap in her sights.

“It’s huge pride not just for me but for my family to be involved and hopefully that’s something I can continue working towards.”

And there can be no better incentive than the opening game of next summer’s tournament being held at Old Trafford.

“You couldn’t write it, could you? A Manchester girl, a Manchester United fan, and the first game at Old Trafford. If that is what happens, that’s what dreams are made of.”

Dreams weren’t always so simple to realise. Raised in a family of footballers — Zelem’s father and uncle both played professionally — the game was always central in her life. As were Manchester United.

Zelem played as the only girl in her local league and trained at United until 17, when she had to leave because the club had no senior women’s team.

“I remember being in sixth form and everyone was writing their personal statements to go to university,” Zelem, now 25, explains.

“All my teachers were telling me to write mine and I thought ‘I don’t really want to, I want to play football, I want to go full-time.'”

Her professional career began at Liverpool – at the time the only full-time professional women’s team in the country – where Zelem trained with her hero.

“Fara Williams was someone I always looked up to, I’d seen her play for her country hundreds of times and I was lucky enough to play with her at Liverpool and learn from her and share the pitch with her day in, day out.”

Williams left Liverpool in 2015 and Zelem was considering a new challenge herself two years later when the phone rang. Juventus were interested.

“I wasn’t looking to go to Italy at all!” she says.

“People ask me about this and think it was really methodical. It was actually really spontaneous. I was looking for a change, I’d been at Liverpool for four or five years, I needed a new challenge. But I wasn’t expecting to go to Italy.

“My agent of the time called me and said ‘we’ve had a call from Juventus, it’s their first year as a women’s team, and they want to sign you.’ First I just thought ‘how do Juventus know who i am?’ but they were really interested.

“This was on Monday and by Wednesday, it was all ready to sign.

“I’d been at training with Liverpool that day.  They gave me two extra days to pack my stuff, I saw all my family and friends … and on Saturday morning my dad was wheeling ten suitcases through Manchester airport.”

And that was that. Having never been away from home Zelem was, days after that initial phone call, living in Italy. She grew as a player, of course, but even more as a person.

“I obviously knew the language was different but I didn’t realise how different the culture would be.

“You quickly get used to it and it was one of the best experiences of my life and I came back much more mature.”

Zelem’s stay in Italy was shorter than everyone had expected. After just one season, the call came from Manchester United and Zelem felt she had no choice but to answer it.

“I don’t think I’d have come back for anyone else. It was a club I’d been waiting five or six years for and it was finally happening.”

Zelem was one of seven players to return to United in the summer of 2018 having played for the club at youth level. They won promotion from the Championship at the first time of asking with Zelem named the club’s Player of the Year and then club captain when Alex Greenwood left for Lyon.

Zelem’s climb, and the chance to finally realise some of her dreams, serves to illustrate just how far the women’s game has come in a matter of years.

“I was at Manchester United at the age of 17 and they didn’t even have a women’s team to sign for, which was the whole reason I went to Liverpool. To look back and there wasn’t even a team to play for and now I’m captain of the women’s team, it’s crazy that that could even be possible.

“Everyone says to me ‘Was it your dream back then to play for Man Utd?’ and I think ‘Well if they had a team it would’ve been.’

“It was difficult to dream something when it wasn’t even an option at the time. When I signed for Liverpool they were the only  full-time professional team, so we’ve gone from having one in the league to being the first fully professional league in Europe. That shows how much the women’s game has come on in England.”

The aim now is to push on with United. Their first WSL season saw them finish fourth when the pandemic prematurely cut 2019/20 short and they made big strides in 2020/21, only to finish fourth again and narrowly miss out on a Champions League place.

The new season brought plenty of uncertainty with Casey Stoney departing and Marc Skinner coming in to take over a side that had lost Christen Press, Tobin Heath and Lauren James. But it doesn’t seem to have effected them as much as many would have expected.

United are fourth in the WSL after six matches, just two points behind Tottenham in third and four points clear of local rivals Manchester City.

“We’re sitting where  we deserve to be and we’ve had some good performances and good results,” she says. “We knew it was going to take time to adapt to Marc’s style of play so we want to take each game as it comes and hopefully that leaves us in the top three come the end of the season.”

That’s a big ask with so much change going on but Zelem is confident that Skinner, with more focus on United’s attacking game, is taking the team in the right direction.

“It was obviously Casey’s first club as a manager and she had her philosophy, how she wanted to play, with a bit more of a defensive focus, understandably as she’d been a centre-half in her playing career.

“Marc’s come in with a slightly different outlook, he wants to build possession, he has experiences in this country but also in America, so I think he’s come back with a mix of philosophies and that’s what he’s trying to embed into our team.

“An improvement on last year would be third place and for us that would be achieving what we’ve set out, so I think the Champions League is the aim.

“We’ve all been watching [it] and there are some phenomenal opponents, not just in this country but in Europe too, that’s where we want to be, testing ourselves against the best, but we have to focus on getting there first.”

The chance to watch, and play, Champions League football. Another way the women’s game has become more accessible. Another dream Zelem has her sights set on.