The football Gods can be a fickle mistress. Elite athletes work incredibly hard and make a multitude of sacrifices (just imagining the hours in the hours in the gym is enough to give me a headache) to touch the ceiling of their talent. The absolute elite marry their innate gifts with an insatiable work ethic not just to get to the top, but to stay there.
I think the latter part of that equation is the one we underestimate the most from the outside. I think we often take for granted that once a player reaches the summit that they will stay there for as long as their bodies allow. But that’s not really the case, to stay there you have to work so, so hard every single day. It’s why most elite athletes ‘hit the age curve’ some time in their early 30s (some earlier).
The physical and mental toll of working harder than anyone else, for years and years and years, eventually claims an athlete. Everyone experiences the age curve differently but everyone experiences it eventually. So what of a player who, shortly before their 35th birthday, can still dominate Champions League semi-finals and finals, in the company of some of the finest players in the game in the most physically demanding position on the pitch?
Some years ago, when I used to do more exclusive player interviews (because the demand for them was much smaller) I always had a set menu of 2-3 questions that I asked everyone. Players had much lower media profiles and I always wanted a bit of BTS insight that, happily, in this day and age is more available and obvious.
I used to ask a lot of questions about training and, in particular, who were the best trainers at the club. I stopped asking after a little while because the words ‘Kim’ and ‘Little’ started to lose meaning. In fact, one of my favourite player interviews I have had the privilege to conduct in recent years was with Kim in April 2022.
I had heard so much about her professionalism, from so many, that I really wanted to understand where her work ethic came from. You can read that interview here. I had spoken to her many times in mixed zones and press conferences but had never really scratched the surface or probed all these wonderful things that so many notable people have said, and continue to say, about her. Inside the game, I don’t think there is a more respected active player.
Kim spent three years playing in the NWSL for Seattle Reign where she flourished, so her reputation stateside is also incredibly strong. It reminds me a little of Kelly Smith, whose reputation on both sides of the pond is embellished by neon spells in the US as well as with Arsenal. Hope Solo describes Kim as the best player she ever played with and Solo played with the best. Granted, she fell out with most of them but that still speaks well of Kim, if you manage not to piss Hope Solo off, you have to be a pretty faultless personality.
Jonas Eidevall described Little’s work ethic as central to her quiet leadership style, ‘She usually runs the most and that goes from warm-up to the last minute of the game. She puts that in on a consistent basis, on an excellent basis every day. You could never point the finger at her and say, ‘you didn’t do your job today.’ She prides herself on it and that culture rubs off on other players. She is the perfect example of someone leading by example.’
One of the things that really struck me from that interview in 2022 was how she described her rehab from an ACL injury in 2017. I suggested that her recovery had seemed to be frictionless and yet I wondered if I just had that impression because Kim has such a low digital footprint and we simply didn’t hear anything about the rehab process.
‘My teammates are always surprised at how I take to setbacks like that,’ she told me. ‘I’m not overly emotional about it. I tend to be logical and pragmatic about things. I maybe had one or two moments where I felt a bit sad but I moved on quickly. That’s my personality, I just went through the process step by step. From training alone a lot when I was younger I didn’t find the process of isolation big injuries bring as difficult as other players do.’
There is also a connection to current manager Renee Slegers, only one year Kim’s senior, in this interview too. Like Kim, Renee grew up in a small town and she told me back in January that this was central to her opportunity to play football with boys growing up, simply because the town wasn’t really big enough, or with enough alternative forms of entertainment, to silo kids from the local area.
There is a level-headedness about Kim that both boosts the quiet awe in which she is held but perhaps also prevents us from colourfully and loudly giving her her flowers. There is a lovely piece of footage on the UWCL twitter account of Aitana Bonmati, the current holder of the Ballon D’Or, approaching Kim as she lines up to accept the UWCL trophy in Lisbon.
Aitana nods knowingly and gives Kim a warm handshake, game recognising game as someone younger than me might say. Little joined Arsenal in 2008- just missing the 2007 Champions League triumph. With apologies to our Scottish readers, international silverware was always unlikely for Kim. I don’t think there is a point in her career where she could have made herself available to any team in Europe without having her absolute pick of clubs.
Arsenal’s social media team also released footage of vice-captain Leah Williamson’s rousing post Lyon speech, where she chooses to centre Kim. Kim and Leah operate a sort of dual captaincy where Leah takes on more of the ‘hype woman’ role and Williamson used that privilege to talk up a captain who would never centre themselves in such a moment.
Yet her loyalty to Arsenal was never in question, her reputation inside the game is peerless. But she was missing that one trinket to absolutely copperplate her legacy and cast it in bronze. Kim lifting the Champions League trophy is an example of the football Gods, if you will, acting in a just manner, recognising an oversight in the script and amending it appropriately. Unlike Bobby Ewing and Dallas, this wasn’t a dream. Or at least it isn’t anymore. In the words of Renee Slegers, it is unreal but also very real, because it happened.
Kim is still contracted for next season so I don’t want to write her career obituary at this stage. But for her to collect this trophy just short of her 35th birthday wraps up her legacy in a neat Little bow. Her next Champions League appearance for the club will see her break the record for Arsenal Women Champions League appearances.
She will go down as one of the best players in the club’s history and one glance at that list shows you the company that statement puts her in. Kim Little, Champions League winner, is right and just. Every member of staff deserved that Champions League triumph in Lisbon on May 24. Kim just deserved it a little bit more.