What are we meant to think of London City Lionesses and their superstars?
What are we meant to think of London City Lionesses and their superstars?
As Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium announcer bellowed “Alexia Putellas” shortly after she opened the scoring for London City Lionesses, the varied reactions from the home supporters told the story.
Some instinctively booed her name. Some went for an ironic “oooh”. One man started chanting, “Who are ya?” to vague amusement from around him.
It is still difficult to know how to view London City Lionesses and their superstars.
In fact, we’re still not sure what to call them. The full name is a mouthful. “City” and “Lionesses” are already taken by the league champions and the national team, and a single club on the fringe of the city being called simply ‘London’ feels wrong. LCL, meanwhile, sounds more like an acronym for a university.
More broadly, what are we meant to think about all this? Are we impressed by Michele Kang’s investment in women’s football and her attempt to shake up a WSL largely dominated by the richest men’s football clubs? Or, at this rather delicate time in English football, do we fundamentally reject the idea of an owner trying to buy the league for a smaller club by signing up world-class players with money that hasn’t been generated by the club?
On the pitch, it’s no surprise that a team boosted by the arrival of Putellas, the two-time Ballon d’Or winner, are capable of banging in the goals. This 6-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur — who had started the season with three wins and a draw — made it four victories from five WSL matches for the upstarts, with the only setback a surprise 2-1 defeat at West Ham United. Some thought that type of performance might be repeated regularly, and that these expensively assembled players would suffer from complacency and a lack of cohesion. On Sunday’s evidence, the opposite is true.
For all their talent, the defining feature of London City Lionesses is their aggression without possession. Putellas, immediately installed as club captain, most visibly shows her leadership skills by pushing up to the opposition centre-backs and encouraging her teammates to follow closely behind. Grace Geyoro patrols the midfield and constantly nips in for interceptions. Centre-back Mapi Leon is always shouting at left-back Lucia Corrales to press the opposition right-back, while she backs up and takes the winger. Does this intensity without possession come from work on the training ground, or is it about players enforcing the approach on the pitch?
“It’s both,” manager Eder Maestre said after the game. “Because one thing is the ideas and the targets and the urgency that you wanted to have through that shape and that behaviour, but if we are not committed to do it, it makes no sense. So you need to put forward the ideas, the players have to believe in the ideas, and then they need to bring to the pitch all the energy to make those ideas into reality.”
This is a side defined by pressing and, therefore, by work rate. They shepherded Tottenham to build up play through their right flank (illustrated in Spurs’ pass map below), then snapped into action and recovered the ball quickly.
If one player symbolises all this, it is Danielle van de Donk, a creative attacking midfielder as notable for her tenacity as her technique. She received a round of applause from Maestre without even touching the ball, when she aggressively shut down opposition right-back Caitlin Dykstra, who knocked the ball out of play for a throw. She also scored her third goal of the season, all of which have come from well-timed runs into the box to meet a ball from wide.
“Danielle van der Donk has that killer instinct,” Maestre said. “She can link up, run, press. She’s one of the key players because she represents the identity we are trying to build — that aggressiveness, that way to feel every action.”
The individual quality in the final third is undeniable. Putellas’ opener was a rebound, but the second was a well-worked move, with Freya Godfrey slipping in Corrales, eternally pushing forward from left-back, to create a tap-in for Kadidiatou Diani. Putellas’ second goal, rifled into the top of the net after Van de Donk knocked the ball back to her after a corner, was classic Putellas.
After Van de Donk’s goal, and Victoria Pelova got one back, Diani got the fifth from a Tottenham mix-up, then substitute Delphine Cascarino made it 6-1 with the final kick of the game.
Six goals — it could have been more — for a side arguably lacking an established, prolific centre-forward. But Godfrey played the No 9 role well here, working the channels, opening up space and providing passes for runners: not just the attacking midfielders, but Geyoro from central midfield and Corrales from left-back too. This is a side based around energy, as well as stars.
One star, judging by the post-match scenes, is Kang herself.
She was busy taking photos with supporters for several minutes after full-time, asking fans which of her players they wanted to say hello to, and beckoning them over. Later, as fans piled into Leyton tube station, Kang was outside taking her final selfies before diving into her Mercedes.
It’s an unfamiliar situation for English football. But it seems to be working.