Amanda DaCosta

Liverpool’s 23-year-old American midfielder, three months into life on Merseyside and revelling in a football-mad culture very different from the States. A Florida State graduate who played for MagicJack and Boston Breakers in the defunct WPS, Amanda DaCosta describes herself as really technical with a big engine, loving runs behind the opposition defence in a three-centre-midfield system that interchanges. She recalls the ESPN promotional shoot at Wembley, where Fara Williams broke a light and Tash Dowie drilled a ball into the cameraman’s shoulder. Squad number 13 is no worry despite her superstitions, tape applied identically each game, because she has worn it since high school. She says the team gelled right off the bat. A fact file gives her birth on 7 October 1989 in Katonah, New York, a Mozambican father and a Portuguese mother.