It is a sunny late summer afternoon in Berkshire but Jess Fishlock’s mind has fast-forwarded to November on another continent. After all, Reading’s marquee loan signing knows her future could hinge on the result of that month’s US presidential election.
In the past, Wales’s most-capped player has said her future lies in the US and, more specifically, Seattle, the city she fell in love with eight years ago after swapping Bristol Academy for the local club now known as OL Reign.
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Fishlock had not bargained for 2020, this most disorientating of years and one when the Pacific coast has lost a little of its allure.
Cue a potential rethink about the ties binding her to Seattle perhaps? “Yes, exactly, spot on,” the 33-year-old says via Zoom from an executive box overlooking the Madejski Stadium’s pristine pitch. “To be in America in 2020 has been a bit of a whirlwind. There’s a lot of crazy stuff going on and a lot hasn’t been dealt with very well. That does change your thought process on where you want to be.
“Hopefully, come November, if good old Trump’s out the door, then we’ll see what happens from there. But it’s 2020 and you never know. A lot’s changed in the last six months.”
If American politics partly informed the decision to help Kelly Chambers’s Reading try to improve on last season’s fifth-place finish in the truncated WSL, the pull of home played a decisive role in Fishlock’s relocation. “Because of everything that’s happened in 2020, I found it quite difficult to be away from my family in Cardiff. In America, I just didn’t feel right. It was something I really struggled with.”
Life in Seattle – where she is scheduled to return to the pandemic-disrupted US women’s soccer league next year – had been further complicated by her rehabilitation from a torn ACL suffered last summer. Now, though, Fishlock, capped 113 times, is fit to feature in Sunday’s opening WSL game at Arsenal.
“I like the challenge of trying to take Reading into the top three,” she says. “England’s so much more professional than eight years ago. At Bristol we had four full-time players.”
Fishlock, who has played in Australia, Germany and France during previous US close seasons, winning the Champions League at FFC Frankfurt and Lyon, hopes this season could be the WSL’s most exciting, particularly because the pandemic has prompted an influx of high-profile overseas imports, with Manchester City capturing the US internationals Rose Lavelle and Sam Mewis.
“The WSL still has a way to go but, because of the way 2020’s panned out, it now has an unbelievable opportunity,” she says. “There’s players here who probably wouldn’t have been had the situation been normal, so this season’s going to be pretty special. It’s really exciting, it’s bridging that gap with America massively.Hopefully the football will be spectacular.”
View image in fullscreenJess Fishlock in action for OL Reign in 2019. Photograph: Jeff Halstead/CSM/Rex/Shutterstock
Given that Fishlock has not always been a WSL cheerleader, her words carry added heft. “I’ve said the WSL lacks tempo and competitiveness but I don’t think that holds any more,” she says in her distinctive hybrid Welsh-US west coast accent. “You would hope this season is the most competitive we’ve had and really pushes teams to new levels.”
With her short, sharp, bright blonde hairand strong, articulate views on human rights and social justice, Fishlock could pass as the twin of her higher-profile OL Reign teammate Megan Rapinoe. A recipient of an MBE for services to football and the LGBT community she speaks eminent, highly logical, common sense.
As befits a manager in waiting – she is close to completing the A coaching licence and hopes to follow in the footsteps of her brother James, a coach at Cardiff – Fishlock’s superior reading of the game dictates she is keen to improve her colleagues. “The common denominator among top teams is tempo – on and off the ball,” she says. “In America I’ve learned that manipulating tempo is how you control games.
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“Helping Reading figure out when we slow it down, when we speed it up and how to control shape is my No 1 priority. Right now, we’re one speed – either slow or 100mph – but, if I can help change that, it will definitely take us to the next level.”
Fishlock also hopes to aid Wales’ qualification push for the late-running 2022 European Championship and represent Team GB at next year’s delayed Olympics. An invitation would be gratefully accepted – so long as whoever takes charge in Tokyo, whether the outgoing England manager, Phil Neville, or someone else – presides over a meritocracy.
“It would be fun if the coach wasn’t from the home nations,” says Fishlock. “I’ve always said they shouldn’t be because there’s a totally understandable subconscious bias. But Phil’s not going to be England manager going forward so maybe he won’t have that pressure with regard to picking England players. I always thought it would hard for him to not pick an English player; it’s a really hard thing to ask any national coach.
“But there’s no doubt we can win Olympic gold; it’s just a case of getting the team right.”
