Characters in a Script

In women’s football, players are too often reduced to characters in a script they didn’t write.

You have the scorers. The heroes. The pretty blondes like Alessia Russo—marketable, media-ready, cast as the face of triumph. And then you have defenders. The blockers. The so-called villains. Still blonde, still beautiful—see Leah Williamson—but somehow framed differently. Less celebrated. Less glossy. More burdened.

But here’s the thing: Leah Williamson doesn’t stop goals—she prevents stories from being written against her team. That’s power. Alessia Russo doesn’t just score goals—she wins possession deep in her own half, works box to box, and does the ugly work most strikers wouldn’t touch.

And yet, the narrative sticks. Scorers are glamorized. Defenders are made stoic. Midfielders are utility. We don’t talk about contributors. We talk about roles. Roles you’re supposed to fit and never outgrow.

But what if that’s not true? What if, in women’s football, more than anywhere else in sport, the script can be rewritten?

Emily Fox is a fullback who breaks forward with the elegance of a 10 and the bite of a 6. Leah Williamson is a center back who leads like a captain but moves like a midfielder. Russo, for all the attention she gets for scoring, is just as valuable for how she prevents goals. They are not what they’re cast as.

This is the deeper truth in women’s football: your label is not your identity. You can be a defender and still be the heart. You can be a striker and still be the spine. You can be the “hero” or the “villain”—or you can be the author.

In a game that’s still shaping its voice, the players are shaping their own stories. And we should let them.