The Keeper and the Weight of Expectation

What Hannah Hampton’s Journey Tells Us About Mental Health in Women’s Football

I read an article in The Athletic this week that not only impressed me—it made me stop and think. It profiled Hannah Hampton, England’s new No. 1, and the arc of her journey: the technical brilliance, the pressure, the setbacks, and ultimately, the growth. But beneath all that was something deeper—an honest look at the mental toll of elite football and what it takes to carry that weight in public, at 24 years old, in the most scrutinized position on the pitch.

Hampton is not just the goalkeeper replacing a generational icon in Mary Earps. She’s not just a WSL champion or the former striker with a surgically corrected squint and no depth perception. She’s a human being who has already lived through the kind of scrutiny, doubt, exclusion, and pressure that would overwhelm most adults twice her age.

And yet, she’s still standing. Still thriving. Still smiling—most of the time.

Her story is a case study in why we need to stop treating mental health in women’s football like a side issue. It’s not a checkbox. It’s not a “soft” concern. It’s foundational to performance, development, and longevity in the game.

In Hampton’s case, what stands out is not just her resilience. It’s how she learned to navigate public criticism, institutional ambiguity, private battles—and still evolve. The Olympic snub that arrived in an email 90 minutes before kickoff. The “attitude” headlines. The period where she considered quitting the game entirely. The backlash when Earps retired and she was next in line. The noise was constant—but so was her commitment to growing through it.

She didn’t just power through. She got help. She worked with a psychologist. She found a third space to train and talk and decompress. And she built something few young athletes are ever taught to prioritize: emotional durability.

And that’s the model we should follow.

At QQSI, we work directly with players—through their agents or individually—outside of clubs and federations. We listen, without judgment. We create space for athletes to express the things they can’t always say out loud. We talk them through uncertainty, off-pitch stressors, family dynamics, self-doubt. When we recognize the need for deeper support, we connect them with sports psychologists we trust—professionals who understand the women’s game specifically. Who understand the unique demands of a sport that still asks women to be both elite athletes and emotional caretakers.

Because mental health and performance are not separate. They coexist. One drives the other.

This is even more urgent in women’s football, where athletes are often balancing second jobs, online abuse, public scrutiny, and internal pressure to be perfect. Where ambition is too often mistaken for arrogance. Where emotion is often misread as volatility. And where mental health is still stigmatized in subtle ways by federations, fans, and even teammates.

Hampton’s story is not tidy. It’s not linear. But it’s exactly the kind of story that should shape how we think about player development—not just technically or tactically, but humanly.

It takes enormous strength to perform at the highest level. But it takes even more strength to say, “I need help,” and to go get it.

That’s not weakness. That’s leadership. And it might just be the most important trait England’s new No. 1 brings into goal.