Coach Kicks: Carla Ward (Birmingham City)

The magazine’s regular coaches’ questionnaire, taken by Birmingham City’s head coach. Attacking patterns are her favourite session to deliver, which she finds funny given how much her side defend. The player who made the biggest impression on her is Rachel Corsie, whose loan she says stretched her without either of them noticing, and whose departure gutted the whole building. Her office is full of cake rather than cones, her home more nursery than tactics board. If she could have any player it would be Sophie Ingle, whom she calls quite possibly the most underrated player she has seen. Her squad barely moan, except to demand longer at the end of training. She reads Pep Guardiola’s four-hundred-page playbook and Allistair McCaw on mindset, tells her players to be fearless, and advises new coaches to be obsessed with learning.