مدير عام كرة القدم
For a long time, Lucy Bronze has been widely recognised as the best right-back in the world, with few disputing such a claim. At her best, the إنجلترا star strikes a fine balance between defensive solidity and attacking prowess, winning five Champions League titles and, after another triumph this summer, two بطولة أوروبا trophies with the Lionesses as a result, among a whole host of other major honours. But as Bronze enters the twilight of her career, that status as the best right-back in the women’s game feels up for grabs – and there are a lot of contenders for it.
Ona Batlle is one of those well in the mix. Batlle took the Women’s Super League by storm in a three-year stint at Manchester United which paved the way for a return to برشلونة, the club she progressed through as a young girl. Instantly, she showed she is more than capable of being a key player for one of the best teams in the world.
Ellie Carpenter is another strong contender. A consistently brilliant performer in her five years with eight-time European champions ليون, the Australia international has now signed for تشيلسي, where she is likely to compete with Bronze for starts.
أؤكد رغبتي في رؤية محتوى خارجي. قد تُنقل بيانات التعريف الشخصية إلى جهات خارجية. اقرأ المزيد حول هذا الموضوع في سياسة الخصوصية الخاصة بنا.
But many would argue that the best right-back in the women’s game right now is someone else, someone who won the Champions League for the first time back in May, less than a year after standing on top of the Olympic podium with her وطني team. That someone is Emily Fox, whose last 18 months have confirmed her status as a world-class footballer.
For a long time, Lucy Bronze has been widely recognised as the best right-back in the world, with few disputing such a claim. At her best, the England star strikes a fine balance between defensive solidity and attacking prowess, winning five Champions League titles and, after another triumph this summer, two European Championship trophies with the Lionesses as a result, among a whole host of other major honours. But as Bronze enters the twilight of her career, that status as the best right-back in the women’s game feels up for grabs – and there are a lot of contenders for it.
Ona Batlle is one of those well in the mix. Batlle took the Women’s Super League by storm in a three-year stint at Manchester United which paved the way for a return to Barcelona, the club she progressed through as a young girl. Instantly, she showed she is more than capable of being a key player for one of the best teams in the world.
Ellie Carpenter is another strong contender. A consistently brilliant performer in her five years with eight-time European champions Lyon, the Australia international has now signed for Chelsea, where she is likely to compete with Bronze for starts.
But many would argue that the best right-back in the women’s game right now is someone else, someone who won the Champions League for the first time back in May, less than a year after standing on top of the Olympic podium with her national team. That someone is Emily Fox, whose last 18 months have confirmed her status as a world-class footballer.
It has always felt like Fox was on this trajectory. The full-back enjoyed a fantastic college career in North Carolina, earning her first United States women’s national team call-ups while still playing out that chapter, and she was unsurprisingly the No.1 overall pick in the 2021 الدوري الوطني لكرة القدم للسيدات Draft, selected by Racing Louisville.
After two strong years with a team that could not contend for a play-off spot, she then made the return to North Carolina to sign for the Courage, a team with post-season expectations. Fox took that step up in level in her stride, too, helping Sean Nahas’ side win the 2023 Challenge Cup.
That ability to always rise to the next challenge is something that made Fox’s potential so intriguing from an early stage, and is made possible by several qualities she possesses. Part of that is psychological; the full-back has that mental strength, that belief in herself and that ambition which allows her to keep going up a level.
There is also the footballing IQ she so clearly has, allowing her to adapt to the different demands at national team and club level, be it in terms of the game plan or the brief she has for her role. This goes hand-in-hand with marvellous technical ability, with her exposure to futsal as a young girl evident in how she plays.
And then there is her athleticism. Fox is quick, she’s got great endurance and she has the physicality to compete in duels. It all rounds out into making her a complete full-back, perfect for the modern game.
Some of these traits have been evident strengths for a long time while others have improved over the course of her career. What’s certain, though, is that the well-roundedness of Fox’s game has had the spotlight shone on it much more because of events of the last 18 months.
In January 2024,, Fox left the United States to sign for أرسنال. “I feel like I want to develop more of my attacking game and so I think the style that Arsenal plays allows me to have freedom, especially with inverting inside or staying high and wide, which I think has become more of a thing that outside backs are doing now because the game is changing,” Fox told ESPN at the time.
Those comments showed that she was a real student of the game, something evident in a previous interview with NBC Sports when she explained that she would often watch how Oleksandr Zinchenko at Arsenal and Trent Alexander-Arnold at ليفربول drifted into the midfield from their full-back roles, something she “loved”.
And that understanding of the game, when combined with all of the aforementioned qualities Fox has, has allowed her to really shine in a new way in England. With Arsenal, she is sometimes an auxiliary full-back who gets up and down the right wing plenty, largely hugging the touchline; sometimes she is asked to underlap more as an inverted full-back, to attack the inside channels; sometimes she can find herself quite central and in some of those midfield areas; and sometimes she will tuck inside to play almost like a right-sided centre-back in a back three, allowing the left-back to be the additional attacker.
That variety comes from the different game plans Arsenal are often asked to craft, with the number of different styles they come up against in England and Europe still larger than what NWSL teams face, even if that is changing in recent years.
But it’s not just what she has been exposed to at Arsenal that has allowed Fox to develop into a genuinely world-class player. The national team has had a massive role, too, particularly because of the contrast in styles between the Gunners and the United States. That has forced Fox to lean into that well-roundedness of her game much more, with her ability to adapt to the two different sides of her career so seamlessly, all while displaying such elite level performance, one of the most impressive things about her.
Another interesting aspect of playing for the U.S. is the pressure and expectation, which is arguably unrivalled in the women’s game. Yet, Fox shows no sign of being fazed by that.
Balancing these two quite different challenges, of representing Arsenal and the U.S, has all culminated in Fox’s game being fine-tuned into a truly world-class one over the last 18 months. She appears to have no weaknesses, in fact.
She gets forward plenty, showcasing intelligent movement and the ability to execute different game plans, with great passing range, vision and an impeccable sense of timing when it comes to bursting into the box to be a goal threat.
But she has the awareness and the athleticism to avoid being a liability defensively, as some attack-minded full-backs can be. She’s great in duels, be they on the ground or in the air, and she reads the game well to break up attacks.
It’s not easy to be a United States international abroad. There is a lot of travel involved which can impact the recovery and rest of players, leading to dips in form and inconsistency. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Fox’s rise to world-class status in the last 18 months, then, is that those troughs have been few and far between, especially considering Arsenal have not had a dependable back-up for her to share minutes with since she signed.
Fortunately, the Gunners have recognised that such a consistent high level, when coupled with minimal rest, is probably not sustainable, with the recent signing of Taylor Hinds evidence of as much. USWNT head coach Emma Hayes has also played her part in Fox’s reliability to date, leaving her off the roster this past summer after a demanding 2024-25 season that began with an Olympic gold medal with the U.S. last August and concluded with a Champions League triumph with Arsenal in late May. Fox is key for club and country and it is important for both to protect her.
The player herself, too, has always looked to be transparent with staff on both sides of the Atlantic. “You have to be good at your communication, letting people know how you’re feeling especially with travel from Europe to the U.S, going into camps, going out of camps and then going into big games,” Fox told ESPN last January. “So, just listening to your body, not being afraid to communicate how you feel.”
After all, she was always aware of the demands such a transfer was going to place upon her, but she believed it was the right move in order to reach her personal goal of becoming the best in the world in her position. Many will argue that Fox sits there right now, with few – if any – likely to dispute that she is a genuinely world-class player.
