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EXCLUSIVE
On the morning of the FA Cup Final Arsenal Ladies forward Kelly Smith asked herself what she wanted to achieve. She stuck on four key points that would define her performance in the day’s game:
- I will keep the ball and play others into play
- I will be confident and play what I see
- I will smile, express myself and enjoy the day
- I will give everything
At 37 you might imagine that the greatest women’s footballer England has ever produced would not need reminding to bring others into the game, nor to enjoy the occasion of a major final. She has played in enough of them after all.
She would disagree: “Any kind of game I play in I have three or four targets I want to achieve, I know if I do that it’ll help my team and my performance. I tried to keep it simple, it’s not a hard game to play if you keep it simple. Go out, enjoy it, play with a smile with your face then that normally ticks the boxes.
“If I’m not sticking to the game plan, if I’m losing the ball a few times I bring it back to the basics. I think about those points in my head and try to focus on that.”
This season has been one of transition for Smith, still a senior figure in and around Arsenal Ladies but no longer the guaranteed starter she has been for most of her career. She is yet to start a game in the Women’s Super League, her last contract saw manager Pedro Martinez Losa proclaim she would be a “link” between the coaching staff and the players.
It was, then, rather surprising to see Smith’s name on the teamsheet an hour before kick-off at Wembley, but perhaps it shouldn’t have been. After a summer of major investment off the pitch that saw the arrival of England international Fara Williams, BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year Asisat Oshoala and Champions League winner Josephine Henning big things were expected from an Arsenal side who had lost their pre-eminent position in the women’s game.
It hadn’t quite clicked on the pitch though, and Arsenal headed into the final having lost as many games as they had won in the league. In search of a solution Losa turned to Smith, and she wasn’t about to let him down.
“I was expecting to be involved in the squad but the manager really kept me on my toes because I didn’t even make the squad for the previous two league games, against Reading and Birmingham, but I was a bit nervous I wasn’t going to make it.
“We wanted to go out and prove a point. Everyone knows we haven’t started well in the season, we’ve dropped a few points… but we knew our best game was coming.
“The talk in the press before was ‘Chelsea have won this, they’re the favourites’. What I like about Arsenal is that when we have the big stage we perform.”
Within 20 seconds it was apparent that Losa had found the formula to unsettle the champions. Smith closed down Millie Bright midway into the Chelsea half, forcing the defender into a loose pass across her backline. The ball came to Danielle Carter, who immediately hit an audacious lob that had Hedvig Lindahl beaten only to land on the roof of the net.
Chelsea didn’t know what had hit them.
“From that early shot where Dan tested the keeper right off the crowd were up for it. I don’t think Chelsea were expecting me to start. Or Asisat. But with the big pitch and her pace, Chelsea couldn’t cope with our front three.
“The first twenty minutes we were at it. They didn’t have any time or composure on the ball. We closed it down. We worked off each other. We hustled, pressurised them in key areas. We didn’t let them play. And they were shellshocked.
“When Dan Carter got that goal in the 18th minute I thought, ‘hold up, this could be our day here’.”
“I’ve always had that vision, I think it’s a God-given talent I have. When I turn I can always thread balls with the right amount of pace. I’ll never lose it; it’s just a case of fine-tuning. Practice. Repetition. Experimentation. Seeing those pictures in training.”
<p>Kelly Smith on her technical expertise</p>
Carter’s goal secured a record 14th FA Cup for Arsenal but even for the most garlanded members of this squad lifting the trophy in Wembley’s Royal Box made this a success to rank above any other. That it came against a side with whom they “share such hatred” – even sweeter.
“That’s up there as one of the best, it’s for Arsenal, my club team, who I’ve supported since I was a kid. It was my fifth FA Cup but to do it at Wembley, for Arsenal, in front of a record crowd, was unreal.
“It was a little bittersweet, the way the whole cup run unfolded. Maybe we shouldn’t even have been there, if Notts County hadn’t had a player sent off in the quarter finals. Penalties against Birmingham. I think there was a feeling of destiny about it.”
In this new era of pluralism in women’s football it may be that the opportunities for Arsenal to celebrate trophies are not as abundant as they once were. But whilst Smith is still wearing red they can at least be sure that if they make it to the big day they will have the consummate competitor in their side.
As for those four aims she wrote that morning?
“I nailed them.”
Smith was speaking at the launch of new video game Overwatch the new first person shooter game by Blizzard out now
