Leah Williamson's Journey Post-ACL Injury that Robbed Her of the World Cup and Her Love for Football.

1 year on from her comeback from her ACL injury on 24th January 2024, Leah Williamson is finally back to full fitness, despite all the obstacles she has faced over the last two years, both physically and emotionally. 

Leah Williamson is Arsenal’s vice captain, and the captain of the England women’s national team. She led the team to victory in 2022 in the women's Euros, and has also done lots of work for women's football as a whole, where she advocates for equality and helps bring individuals together of all ages to be a part of the women's football community.

After returning to football after an ankle injury just a few months prior, Leah ruptured her ACL during an away match against Manchester United on 19th April 2023. Leah was the third Arsenal player to sustain this injury in 5 months, after Beth Mead and Vivianne Miedema, who suffered the blow in November and December 2022 respectively. In a podcast with Fearne Cotton, Leah described the incident and how she felt, saying “I had my cry in the changing room, and I really cried. I just knew that was my World Cup over.” 

She had described the moments after her injury in an interview with The Telegraph just before her return to play, saying “The physios came in [at half-time] and said, ‘We’re looking at an ACL’, then everyone went back out onto the pitch, and from that moment, I was in pieces. I just cried. That journey back home was horrendous. I was thinking, ‘I don’t have the energy for this. I’m so tired already.’”

An Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury is where the strong band of tissue connecting the thigh bone to the shinbone, tears or strains. The ligament goes through the knee, which is where the tear or strain occurs. It is a common injury in football, but the research in ACL injuries in women shows that women are more likely to sustain these injuries. There have been over 500 ACL injuries in women's football since 2022. This caused at least 37 players to miss the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup in Australia, one of which being Leah. Beth Mead also missed out on the World Cup, meaning England lost 2 of their key players. The injury guarantees players to be on the sidelines for around 9 months, with surgery and rehabilitation taking up a lot of that time, but it also gives players time to reflect and pursue other hobbies whilst off the pitch. In Leah’s case, she learnt to play the piano, and played alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra in December 2023. 

Leah has briefly opened up about her struggles with losing her love for football prior to her injury, talking about how the Euros brought such a massive following to the women's game which caused anxiety knowing of the fame she had been given. After returning from her ankle injury, before her ACL, Leah said in an interview with The Telegraph that “[it had not been] the best year for me personally in life, that month beforehand was probably the best football I’d played in a long time and I was having so much fun. Then [the ACL injury] happens.”

Since returning to the pitch on 24th January 2024 in Arsenal’s away game against Reading in the Women's League Cup group stages, Leah has had a rollercoaster of a time, with setbacks along the way such as a torn hamstring just 3 weeks later, which ruled her out of Arsenal’s record-breaking attendance game against Manchester United at the Emirates Stadium, and also made her withdraw from the England squad for that round of games, which were qualifiers for the 2025 Euros. She also has dealt with concussion issues, and some discomfort in her knee which saw her get substituted off at half-time in the 2024 Continental Tyres Cup final, where Arsenal finished as the winners. This felt quite disheartening for Leah, as she had worked so hard to get back to full fitness, making the comeback in January feel less special. 

However, despite all of this, Leah refused to give up. Her strength and determination to push through was evident throughout each setback, and on 9th April 2024, 364 days since her last game with England, she led the team out to play against Republic of Ireland, and captained her country once again, leading England to win 2-0.

Another pivotal moment in Leah’s England return was her 50th cap, where she played with the rainbow captain’s armband against South Africa. Leah scored a cracker of a goal in the 12th minute, something that meant so much to herself and her teammates, after a spell of issues with Arsenal that led to many nasty comments being spread online. The goal was exactly what she needed, and set her up for a more positive outcome as a result.

In an interview with the BBC, Leah stated, "I feel like for the first time I am in a place where I feel like a real footballer again. I can train every day, I can train at the weekend, I've not had the best luck in the world and that's OK, that's life. It's the first time I'm in a good place. I love football, I love going to training, I love playing. If I listened to what everyone said, I wouldn't enjoy it."

Since then, Arsenal have appointed Renée Slegers as their new head coach, after the departure of Jonas Eidevall in October 2024. Both fans and the players have found that Arsenal is having more of a comfortable presence since Slegers took charge, and Leah agreed to this in an interview with The London Evening Standard.

“Before Renée took over, she did a lot with me on just understanding me, I just feel like she sees me. It is probably a Dutch thing, but she doesn’t say things for the sake of it. She says what she means, and I think she looks at things from a slightly different perspective than I have known from a coach. In football, a manager comes in and it’s a bit pot luck — do you align with them or not? As I got older — circumstances, everything that’s happened, injuries — I became such a protected person. I protected myself in any way I could, which means you actually end up being less vulnerable. And I think, as a footballer, to grow you have to be open. She has just unlocked that. It is a safe space to be honest and open about how I am feeling, what do I like, what do I not like. It is the first time in my career, where I said to her, ‘I am more excited for training than I am for games, because I can feel stuff happening, I can feel development.”

Fans are saying that Leah is now “at her peak” due to her full fitness and her exceptional performances for both Arsenal and England. After scoring the first of 5 goals in Arsenal’s WSL game against Crystal Palace on 19th January 2025, Leah’s positivity is shining through, and her story is extremely inspiring for all, from young girls wanting to become footballers, to players who are currently going through ACL injuries, but also to the fans who have followed her journey throughout and seen such a positive difference in Leah and her growth. 

Leah’s next appearances for Arsenal and England are Arsenal’s clash with Manchester City at the Joie Stadium on 2nd February 2025, and a Women's Nations League match with England, where they take on Portugal on 21st February at Estádio Municipal de Portimão