A new season, a new chapter
After a two-month summer break the squad is back in training, with new players in it and some familiar faces now playing elsewhere in the world.
After a two-month summer break of travelling, adventures and doing very little, it is time to regroup and start training for the 2023/24 season.
We came back with mixed feelings. It is good to see everyone again and hear what they did over the summer, and it is strange to be missing a few familiar faces. Those players have moved on to new clubs around the world, and we will be following how they get on.
At the same time there are new girls in the squad, and the job now is to make them feel part of the pride as quickly as everybody else did.
It has been good to be back with our head coach, who picked the sessions up exactly where last season left them: fitness first, to shake off the summer, and then drills to sharpen the football.
What has not changed through all of it - new players, departures, a two-month gap - is the team spirit. That is the thing that makes a group grow, and as parents it has been a pleasure to watch the girls get stronger and then see the work pay off.
And after one of the best Women's World Cups anyone can remember, it is worth remembering that every player in it started in a girls' team much like this one.
