Lucia Kendall exclusive: England's breakout star reflects on 'crazy' ascension, securing a spot in the Lionesses' Women's World Cup squad and raising the standards as Aston Villa

That comment offers a glimpse into why Kendall has been able to take everything in her stride in the past 12 months. It’s hard not to link that and the maturity she speaks with to her level of experience in the senior game, too. Kendall might be new to the top-flight of English football, but she’s been developing lower down the pyramid since she was a teenager, through the fourth, third and second tiers.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, it’s off-the-pitch matters that she describes as being the hardest in her first season in the WSL, as she got to grips with living away from home for the first time. “It was a big transition and something that I, honestly, probably have only just really started to adapt to,” she says.

With regards to the football, though, Kendall believes her time at Southampton “put all the bricks in place” for her at Villa. “I just had to get used to the speed of play,” she says. “The experience that I've had of playing football, even though at times I was playing tier four or tier three, I've had those moments as a young 17-year-old where I've had to take the game by the scruff of the neck. Not many people at that age have to do that. I think that definitely put me in good stead.”

It’s one thing to carry those qualities up from the WSL 2 to the WSL; it’s another entirely to take them into England camps, at almost the same time. While Kendall was finalising her contract at Villa last summer, the Lionesses were winning a second successive European Championship title. Three months later, their paths would cross.

But Kendall took a similar approach and was clearly never daunted by that international breakthrough, even if it’s still something that is sinking in. When GOAL puts it to her that she is an England player now, the 22-year-old laughs. “I still don’t feel like that,” she replies. “I don’t think I’ll feel like that for a while.”

It’s interesting that that element of disbelief co-exists with a really mature and confident approach to representing the Lionesses. “I know I play my best when I'm confident, but that's a fine balance, really, to be confident but also understand the magnitude of what you're doing,” Kendall explains. In her first camps as an England player, she believes she had "the perfect balance of that”, which helped her produce such stand-out performances.

Wiegman’s guidance was another contributing factor. Kendall remembers the England boss sitting down with her before her debut against Australia and telling her: “You deserve to be playing.” While the decision to include the 22-year-old in the starting line-up already “spoke volumes” of the trust Wiegman had in the midfielder, that served to further underline it. “The openness and honesty you get from her is really refreshing and something I really value,” Kendall says.

Also vital is the fact that trust exists at club level, which allows the midfielder to get the game time and opportunities she needs to stay in the Lionesses’ picture. Villa boss Natalia Arroyo has a wonderful reputation for developing young players, with England youth international Rachel Maltby telling GOAL last season that it doesn’t just come from giving those players the minutes, but also because of the time and effort she puts into getting to know each individual and “what makes us tick”.

Kendall, meanwhile, highlights that, because of Arroyo's belief in young talent, “the fact I knew that if I performed at the level, I should be in the starting line-up” was a big thing for her when she chose to sign for Villa last summer.

A lot has happened in the last 12 months, and Kendall will hope a lot more does in the next year, too. At club level, Villa are keen to improve on what was a disappointing ninth-placed finish last year, after finishing in the top half in two of the previous three seasons, and only one place outside it in the other.

“We've just been talking a lot about how we can up the intensity, push each other and push the standards to grow as a club. That's something that we're really focusing on at the start of this season,” Kendall notes.

As part of that, the 22-year-old wants to be more instrumental. She remembers coming into the WSL last summer and thinking about “surviving at the level”. Having done that - and then some – her focus has now upgraded a little.

“I know that I can have a good game and we as a team can still not get the result we want,” she explains. “For me, I want to have more of an effect on the outcome of the game, whether that be scoring or assisting, but also taking a little bit more risk. How can I break the lines and play that pass to help set us on an attack? Rather than playing back or to someone else and then we keep the ball.”

It all feeds into Kendall’s “ultimate goal”, which is “to be able to play all three positions really effectively in midfield”. She played deeper at Villa last year, something she enjoys because she likes “getting on the ball and dictating the tempo of the game”, while her England opportunities have often come as a box-to-box midfielder, the role in which she is “probably most comfortable”. Her first full season in the Southampton team, meanwhile, saw her net 21 goals in 24 games as a No.10, as the Saints won promotion to the WSL 2.

“I don't think that's my natural position,” she says, despite the numbers. “But I want to be that type of player that can play anywhere in midfield.”

Kendall knows that if she can keep improving as an individual, it will take care of other things. It will help Villa, whom she is confident can “push on again” after a summer of good recruitment, and it will also stand her in good stead when it comes to England, in a World Cup year.

It’s actually Kendall who brings up the World Cup first, when GOAL asks at the start of the interview if she has had time to reflect this past summer on a remarkable season last year: “I think it's hard because it is like a two-year cycle, with the World Cup next summer. So I think while I've been able to reflect, I also have half an eye on that and I've got to keep going."

That it is in her mind, and not something she is pretending to ignore, hints at that mature and clear mindset with which Kendall has approached all the big breakthroughs so far. “It gives me direction,” she notes later, when GOAL this time brings up a tournament that when it was last held in 2023, England reached the final of.

“Come the summer, I want to be there. But there's so much that has to go right and so many things I have to do. On the pitch, I have to take care of my body, I have to keep getting better, I have to stay confident and in that good mindset. There are so many things I have to take care of and I think that's like the north star, you know? That's the direction. But every day, I can't put pressure on myself and be like, 'Oh, I have to do this because I have to get to the World Cup'. It's just taking every day. The really important thing, being at Villa, is just for us to be as successful as possible and I want to play as big a part in that as possible.”

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