Manchester City’s Keira Walsh: ‘The first few days were a bit surreal’

Less than three weeks since England’s euphoric triumph against Germany at Euro 2022, Keira Walsh returns to her day job on Thursday when Manchester City meet the Kazakh club Tomiris-Turan in the first qualifying round of the Women’s Champions League.

The central midfielder was pivotal to England’s tournament success — her perceptive through‑pass that released Ella Toone to score at Wembley is the most memorable example — and Walsh has had time recently to reflect on the scale of the Lionesses’ accomplishment.

“The first few days it was still a bit surreal,” she tells the Guardian. “But now things have calmed down a bit, you do get a chance to sit back and realise the achievement. When you come out of the tournament, and out of our bubble, [you understand] the magnitude that women’s football is going to grow to now — it is just going to be crazy.”

The post-tournament break was “short, it’s fair to say,” but Walsh is aware of the need for the women’s game to seize the moment: “We had a lot of media stuff, but that’s part and parcel of winning it. I think it’s a great opportunity for us to grow the game through doing that. Hopefully we can keep pushing it.”

Manchester City’s England contingent returned to training last week to prepare for the Champions League qualification mission in Madrid this week, and Walsh says the mood is upbeat as several new signings settle into a much‑changed squad.

During the summer, Caroline Weir departed for Real Madrid, Lucy Bronze went to Barcelona and Georgia Stanway joined Bayern Munich. There are six new arrivals in Gareth Taylor’s playing group, meanwhile: Laia Aleixandri and Deyna Castellanos came in from Atlético Madrid, Leila Ouahabi from Barcelona, plus Mary Fowler, Kerstin Casparij