READY FOR WAR

She had played just a handful of times for her country, and was scarcely known outside experts in the women’s game.

Then came England’s group match against Mexico in Moncton, New Brunswick. In the 71st minute, the forward pounced on a loose ball on the edge of the penalty area, flicking it beyond one defender before jinking past another. She then prodded it into the corner of the Mexican net to hand the Lionesses a crucial 1-0 lead.

“I think you can see by my celebration I had no idea what to do,” Kirby tells FourFourTwo with a nervous laugh, four years on. “I just kind of ran around.”

Now, thanks to that goal, England’s surprise third-place finish and the huge success that followed her subsequent move to Chelsea, she’s a bankable superstar, featuring in huge marketing campaigns for brands such as Nike, Capital One and Swarovski. This month, her face is gracing FFT’s cover for the second time in just seven issues – third in 11 issues if you count the tiny illustrated version on the front of our September 2018 edition.

Most importantly, in