Win or lose the World Cup final, Alessia Russo is a powerful force who won’t be stopped | OneFootball

Alessia Russo celebrates scoring England's third goal in the Women's World Cup semi-final win over Australia.

Alessia Russo, like her England team-mates, had to scrap and sacrifice to reach the biggest stage of all. Johnny Nic pays tribute to the Arsenal new girl…

Who’s this then? Alessia Mia Teresa Russo is a 5’9” 24-year-old, Maidstone-born striker who has just signed for Arsenal and is one of England’s stars at the World Cup, scoring a goal against Australia to take England to the World Cup Final.

'Qualifying does feel close' | Souttar...

Do Newcastle need to add more quality...

Docherty praises 'togetherness' in win...

Naismith felt 'lucky' to be drawing at...

Robson admits poor performance but...

Robinson praises 'outstanding'...

Hunter: Rubiales suspension a 'big win'...

Johnson reminds fans of 'European...

McInnes felt 'nervous' in referee's...

Kettlewell praises 'personality and...

MacLean praises 'work rate, energy and...

Rodgers says performance 'deserves'...

<

From a sporty family, her father played non-league football for Metropolitan Police F.C. and remains their record goalscorer. One of her brothers has also played non-league football and another represented England at track and field.

She had a youth career at Charlton Athletic and Chelsea. In 2017 she played nine games for Brighton before going to university in America, attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, along with current England teammate Lotte Wubben-Moy, becoming room-mates. She played football for North Carolina Tar Heels, making 57 appearances across three seasons, scoring 28 times. She graduated with a major in sport and exercise science and won two Atlantic Coast Conference titles and the ACC Women’s Soccer Tournament in 2017 and 2019. She was ACC Fresh(wo)man of the Year: 2017 and ACC Offensive Player of the Year 2018.

Back in the UK in 2020 she signed for Manchester United but tore a hammy in October and missed the rest of the season.

‘In lockdown, it was tough: I was training on my own, I was home and I lost quite a bit of weight. Then I signed for Man United soon after lockdown. And within about six weeks, I completely tore my hamstring, [which I] could only relate back to losing a lot of weight because I’ve never had a muscle injury before.’

She came back stronger and more powerful. In the 2021-22 season she scored 11 in 30 appearances and was the inaugural winner of the team’s Players’ Player of the Year award. The following season she was awarded Player Of The Year.

In her final season at United, she was the subject of a record bid from Arsenal worth over £400,000 in January and finally joined them this summer on a free transfer.

Internationally she has played for all the under-age England teams and made her senior debut in March 2020. In a seemingly inexhaustible upward curve at last year’s Euros she scored the goal of the tournament with an extraordinary back heel against Sweden.

So far she’s won the Euros with England, the Arnold Clark Cup twice and the Finalissima against Brazil. And now it’s time to win the World Cup. C’mon!

Why the love? She’s an imposing striker, who, like all great strikers, knows how to find and exploit space. Having previously been deployed as a lone forward, she has adapted superbly to playing as part of a two with Lauren Hemp for England, allowing her to see more of the ball and be more effective. We saw this in the Lionesses last game against Australia when she set up Ella Toone’s wonderful strike and in how she ran into position to collect Hemp’s through ball to strike it first time into the net. Playing up top on her own tended to leave her more isolated and detached and she’s got so much more to offer than just goals.

I love her on the turn, accelerating while holding off the opposition with her power. She often looks unstoppable in that role, often a little withdrawn, burning up the turf.

Her height gives her an advantage at set-pieces but that backheel against Sweden was simply one of the most extraordinary goals I have ever seen scored. It was so shocking to see a player who was moving away from goal, back heel it into the net between the goalie’s legs. Jaw-dropping.

Now a very strong player, she is excellent at holding the ball up, being one of the taller women, and quite a physically-imposing figure. This is something she’s had to work on, admitting that she used to be skinny and liked the way she looked, but wasn’t robust enough for her role on the pitch and had to adjust her diet to make herself more powerful, prioritising strength over skinny. There’s a lesson there.

Being the cover star of June’s ‘Women’s Health’ magazine, following in the footsteps of teammate Leah Williamson, is a symbol of the greater cultural effect Russo and her cohorts are having. These are important people.

But more than any of all this, the sheer unadulterated thrill that Russo, that England, express in their success is almost overwhelming. They make the heart absolutely burst with joy. No too-cool-for-school posing when scoring, just pure, pure happiness and togetherness.

There is so much misery around right now, as the basic structure of our society strains under the pressure of political mendacity mixed with a massive dose of stupid, Alessia and the Lionesses are a pointer towards a better, more inclusive, happier world. And f*ck do we need that, right now.

Three great moments THAT back heel…

THAT goal v Australia…

Player Of The Month. Player Of The Year…

Future days? She’s signed a long term contract with Arsenal, who, especially when they get their famous ACL trio back, will be a powerful force in the WSL.

Like all her England team-mates she is an articulate and inspiring role model. Their success is obviously a sporting one but it is also a cultural one. If they hadn’t been such positive advocates for the right for girls and women to play football and such clear and strident voices against the bigotry, misogyny, ignorance and stupidity every single one of them has had to overcome in order to reach the pinnacle of the game, perhaps they wouldn’t be such a powerful, progressive collective. It often seems that they really are the best of us.

Win or lose the World Cup Final, all of England’s players will be household names, if they’re not already. The Australia game was the most watched television event in Australia’s history. We are living through an extended watershed moment for women’s football, perhaps even more broadly for women’s sport. No longer dismissed as inferior by any but the most tortured, twisted and blinkered, the international game is a primo product playing to packed out stadiums.

The flow downstream to the club game also seems inevitable as attendances grow exponentially and ever more clubs get ever better.

Arsenal manager Jonas Eidevall – who does seem a very nice chap – couldn’t smile wide enough on TV after the 3 – 1 win against the Matildas, knowing that he had just signed Russo, one of the biggest stars of the game. This meteoric rise was decades in the making and we’re fortunate that it is happening in an era of such a politically motivated and firm-minded set of players. There is no putting the genie back in the bottle now.

Alessia Russo, or ‘Less,’ as they call her (well you can’t add an ‘o’ to Russo, can you?) will go down in history, possibly for something she does in the 2023 World Cup final or because of what she has already done. This is history being made in real time. It’s bloody fantastic.