Deeply Dali (Kenza Dali interview)

Kenza Dali chose to stay in England after West Ham, turning down offers from France and Italy that carried Champions League football, because the WSL is physical and every weekend is difficult. She talks about learning the language from Matt Beard’s Cockney and now struggling with Scouse, about a nephew who picks her squad numbers and chose seven because it is Mbappe’s, and about a big personality that stays chilled while winning and gets annoying while losing. She is half Algerian and says she feels more Algerian than French at home while being wholly French in the shirt. Football was the way out of a difficult city, and of the loss of her brother. She owns roughly two hundred pairs of trainers.