Hello, Arsenal Women aficionados!
There is no football to talk about today. This is a special feature of the Arsenal Women Journal, dedicated to two very special players who will be leaving the club in the summer. Arsenal website broke the news and our hearts a few days ago, and the wound is still open: Beth Mead and Katie McCabe are leaving.
Both players are expected to join elected-champions Manchester City, on a free transfer, and put an end to their stay in North London. The fact that they are joining a direct competitor really hurts, but what hurts more is losing two experienced leaders, strong characters and veterans at a key moment in the short and medium term of the Arsenal Women team. Obviously, the club has no say about which club a player can join when her contract expires, so if both end up in a Manchester City shirt we will all have to suck it up.
Anyways, the point of this special feature is to pay a tribute to two fantastic players and two great servants of this team, so let’s dig into that and stop dwelling about their future whereabouts.
Thank you, Katie. Thank you, Beth.
Each in her own way, they left a mark on the club and helped writing some of the most important pages on the Arsenal Women’s history book, which is already such a great accomplishment per se, given the pedigree of the club and the amazing players that wore the shirt over the years.
Beth Mead arrived at the club as one of the most sought-after young strikers in Europe, in January 2017, on the back of a ridiculous debut campaign in the top division, when she won the Golden Boot. Yet, she was almost immediately presented with a huge challenge, as the club recruited Vivianne Miedema from Bayern Munich. If Beth Mead was one of the hottest prospects around, the Dutch forward was THE ONE, a generational player who was already shaking the world of women’s football in England and in Europe.
Beth Mead responded to the challenge in what we all learned to be “The Beth Way”: she fought back. Moved at right wing to accommodate Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead went from a fantastic striker to a fantastic winger in a very short period of time and grew in the role to become one of the finest wide forwards in Europe. She would rack up assist and goals, be the nuisance we learnt to love, chase every ball and close down every opponent until the final whistle, game after game. Besides her obvious skills, Beth Mead had this edge about her, this ability to turn challenges and adversities into fuel for her next game – and that really sets her apart from anyone else.
We all enjoyed the Beth Mead Revenge Tour after she was inexplicably left out of the Great Britain team that went to the 2021 Olympic Games and saw her raise her levels once more to become – in my humble opinion – the best player in the world during the 2021/22 campaign. She went on to win the Euros with England, she was named Player of the Tournament and won the Golden Boot, yet that wasn’t enough to win a well-deserved Ballon d’Or. What a shame.
At that point in time, the Arsenal team was any combination of Beth Mead and another ten (very good) players, until her anterior cruciate ligament snapped late in 2022. That episode felt terrible because Beth Mead was at the peak of her powers, and everyone could anticipate that the recovery and return to fitness would be complicate for a player that lived off explosiveness and repeated high intensity runs.
New challenge, new energy for Beth Mead, who came back and left an indelible mark on the UWCL triumph, last season, with the clever assist for Stina Blackstenius in Lisbon.
I really hope that someone within the current group of players absorbed Beth Mead’s superpower to turn anything bad coming her way into energy and determination to overcome it, because that separates good players from champions, and legends.
Photos courtesy of Arsenal.com
Another player who never shied away from a challenge in Katie McCabe, who appeared very emotional after the home game against Everton. The Ireland international and captain will end her association with the club, next summer, and will surely go down as one of the finest players to ever don the Arsenal Women shirt, and a club legend.
Left wing, right wing, left back, right back, central midfielder, centre-half, there is not a position she cannot play and she hasn’t played during her stay in North London. Ms. Reliable has been almost ever available, played through pain and injuries and showed a level of commitment and dedication that few players could ever match: her feistiness, competitive edge and character made it a nightmare to play against, and the ultimate teammate for anyone who crossed her path.
It would be too little and unkind to return a picture of Katie McCabe as the warrior, the fighter, because she has one of the most well-educated left foot in women’s football and a rare football intelligence, but it is true that her leadership was evident – armband or not.
In a team of technicians and lightweight players, she was there to make sure that no one would dare to bully the Arsenal Women and was ready to fight back those who believed they could use any form of brutality to stop the Gunners from playing their expansive brand of football. That came at a price, at times, and Katie McCabe picked up a few unnecessary red cards along the way, of was involved in incidents you wish she wasn’t involved in, but there is no denying that she always, always left it all on the pitch, and gave her all to the Arsenal Women cause.
Photos courtesy of Arsenal.com
Despite the turmoil and changes within the club, with head coaches being replaced too frequently for the Arsenal standard, she was always integral to any team, and the first name on the starting XI for each coach – no matters the tactical setup of the opponent on the day.
Her trademark long-distance goals will remain in our memories for a long time, and so will her singing at the UWCL trophy parade, when her sunglasses spoke a million words. Losing Katie McCabe means losing a part of the soul of this Arsenal Women team, a big chunk of what made this team so likeable and, I suspect, the main instigator behind the many comebacks and impossible escapes the team pulled off last season, during their unforgettable European campaign.
The harder the mission, the stronger the team, and I really think that Katie McCabe inspired the team’s resilience and hunger, even if she wasn’t part of the so-called leadership group anymore, because a leader remains a leader – and Katie McCabe has always been one.
It will feel weird not to see Katie McCabe in the team sheet, and on the pitch altogether, not to mention her playing in a different shirt.
Farewell, Legends.
Italian living in Switzerland, Gooner since mid-nineties, when the Gunners defeated my hometown team, in Copenhagen. I started my own blog and podcast (www.clockenditalia.com) after after some experiences with Italian websites and football magazines. Covering Arsenal Women with the occasional rant about the boys.
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