Leah Williamson
Imagine a football match that was 16 seconds long and consisted of a single penalty kick that decided the winner.
This happened back in 2015 and there’s a video of it I watch every now and then.
Over the years the video has changed.
Back in 2015 the video told this story:
The U19 England football team, in a qualifier against Norway, have won a last-minute penalty, which if they score, will send them to the tournament.
The taker steps up and beat the keeper with a low shot.
But celebrations are short lived, the referee had spotted an infringement and disallowed it.
There’s confusion.
The referee has made a mistake and isn’t allowing a retake.
The game ends and so do England's hopes of qualification.
When they realised the error, the powers-that-be decided the match should be replayed 5 days later from the moment the penalty was taken.
Imagine the person who had to take the penalty. Five agonising days of waiting, the journey back to the stadium, the entire team pulling on their kits once more, all culminating in one single, high-stakes penalty kick.
The referee, who absolutely didn’t want to get anything wrong this time, then checks everything while our taker waited, and waited.
Finally the whistle blows.
They score, and everyone loses their minds, composes themselves for 10 seconds and then collapses at the final whistle. She’d done it.
I loved this because of the performance under pressure. It’s sport doing the best thing sport does and giving us a moment to frame our own lives with.
In 2015 I was running a business and perhaps feeling my own pressure. My life doesn’t throw up such a win or lose moment but we all have times when something big is on the line and we need to perform.
I got goosebumps watching this moment again and again.
Over the years the rewatches have changed. Not because of the events, she scores and they qualify every time, but because of the taker, or rather who the taker became.
The taker was two-time Euro-winning, England captain, Leah Williamson.
Now when I watch I realise the kick that mattered so much, didn’t actually matter at all.
If she missed it would she not have become the captain of the Lionesses?
Williamson steps up and takes responsibility, took this penalty twice 5 days apart and has taken many more since. It’s that character that got her to the top of the game and makes her one of England’s greatest ever captains (put a world cup on it and she’s #1, come at me).
Now I’ve experienced successes and failures over the last 10 years I’m ready to see that trusting in who you are and what you do is the way. It’ll take you on the journey, via the highs and lows. It’s not going to all come down to one kick no matter what it feels like in the moment.
And I find that less stressful.
We are all 2015 Leah Williamson, so we should relax and enjoy the ride, because in the end, we are going to turn out to be Leah Williamson.