When Ellie Carpenter was 16 she was sledged by an opposition manager. Western Sydney Wanderers were playing away, she was at right-back and the coach was going hell for leather from his technical area. “Who is Ellie Carpenter? She’s not fast,” he boomed as his own player ran at her with ball at feet. “She’s nothing.”
“He was just giving it to me,” says Carpenter, now 22 and playing for Olympique Lyonnais. “Just going at me the entire first half, because I was on his side [of the pitch]. I was just like ‘who is this guy, what is he doing? I’m literally like 16 years old, what are you trying to get at?’”
