To understand Chloe Kelly’s year and the series of game-turning inventions that led to the historic successes in Lisbon and Basel, you have to go back to her bathroom floor in Liverpool and the toughest period of her life. Kelly could not get up from it, sick with anxiety and struggling with panic attacks, crushed by the feeling of not being in control of her own future. It was January 2025, a few months before the Euros, and Kelly was desperate to move away from Manchester City and to get more minutes on the pitch. Not just that, she needed to take charge again.
Even at her lowest, she knew the determination and talent were still there; what was missing was a sense of purpose and the joy she first felt dribbling a ball when growing up in the five-a-side street cages of west London. A journey that began by trekking across the city after school with Lotte Wubben-Moy to get to Arsenal’s academy, taking the underground, a train, a bus and finally a walk over the M25, was in danger of fizzling out as the hours ticked towards the transfer deadline. She felt as if the door to getting out was closing. At the age of 27, she was prepared to walk away and quit.
