Francesca Kirby is preparing to lead the Great Britain national women’s football team at the Tokyo Summer Olympics.
She was diagnosed with a heart condition at the end of 2019, which left her confined to a sofa for two months, but a remarkable turnaround has followed. Francesca Kirby played a starring role in that Chelsea season, scoring 25 goals in all competitions as she shone alongside Australian strike partner Sam Kerr.
“I knew I wasn’t in a position to be selected for the [2020] Olympics and I never thought about Olympic selection this time because I was basically starting from scratch”, said Francesca Kirby in an interview. “I just thought ‘if I get to play some part of Chelsea’s season, then great'”, added she.
At the national team, Francesca Kirby had played 45 matches and scored 13 goals in all tournaments. She was hailed as a “stand out player” in Great Britain’s gold medal-winning team at the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia.
“When I got the email, I was like ‘wow’. All the hard work that you’ve done has paid off because you are going to be part of something that’s incredible”, said she. “It’s quite funny. My aunties always believe I’m the best player ever, regardless of whether I play well or not, so when I told them, they were like ‘of course you’ve been selected’. That’s just your family, isn’t it? They always believe you are the best. Everyone was just really happy for me after everything I’ve gone through. I stayed with them as much as I could during everything, so they saw it first hand. For me to tell them I got selected was really special. It was a massively proud moment for me and my family”, added Francesca Kirby.
