The She Kicks Locker Room: Game Ready with Lily Woodham (Reading)

Reading’s left-sided player marked her senior Wales debut at Newport by heading in the fourth goal against the Faroe Islands, and was interviewed in the changing room afterwards by Jess Fishlock in the character of a hard-hitting reporter. Asked about her matchday, she is precise about one thing and relaxed about everything else: there is a coffee shop by Reading’s stadium and she gets there early for a flat white with one sugar, but the food varies. Music is the ritual – headphones turned up loud, a playlist heavy on Sean Paul and party anthems – and while she listens she visualises the first pass, the first touch, the first tackle. The nerves, she says, are excitement rather than fear. Afterwards it is an ice bath, a hot shower and, invariably, McDonald’s.