When Jessica Naz left her childhood club Arsenal for Tottenham as a teenager, she was not just swapping one side of north London for their most bitter rivals.
She was dropping down a division, leaving behind the resources of England’s most successful women’s club and the chance to train with some of the country’s best players. Her career at the top of the game could easily have been over before it began.
In July, Naz made her England debut, almost six years to the month after the biggest decision of her career.
It was the ultimate vindication of her choice, though one she insists she never needed.
“I never rush a decision,” she tells Sky Sports. “I’m the type of person who thinks carefully about the pros and cons of everything.
“I back myself. People might think leaving was a step down for me but I wanted to be in an environment where I could play first-team football, look at the big picture and push me to become a better player.
“It was still hard at the time. It was a big jump coming to Arsenal in the first place. It had been a great challenge, it was one that I needed and it helped me to see what kind of level I was at.
“But as a 16-year-old, I got to a stage where I either stayed and played with people my age or took the risk. I was ready to do that.
“It was quite hard to get into the first team, but from training with them for a few months I knew the level I wanted to get to.”
Naz says she has always been analytical. It helped her to make that early decision to leave Arsenal and once she had found first-team football, to keep up with Spurs’ growth to become a WSL mainstay.
She bucks the trend of the profile of an everyday footballer, in a business where shyness is still perceived as a weakness. But the 23-year-old’s introspection has proven one of her greatest strengths when she needed it most.
When Naz suffered a double ACL and MCL rupture in 2019, shortly after Tottenham’s promotion, she faced a year out of the game on the sidelines. Not a naturally open person, two Tottenham physios helped her let out the frustration and emotion.
That helped to a point. But it also inspired her to look back at her past, and plan for her future, which really helped her to keep positive.
Naz was handed her international debut by Sarina Wiegman in England’s 2-1 win over the Republic of Ireland in July
“For that to happen at such a young age, I had to show a resilient side and the other side of football – the mental side,” she explains. “Those two helped to remind me that it was OK not to be OK, that there would be days I didn’t want to come in.
“Then I started looking back at old clips to remind me why I loved the game so much. I’m someone who clips everything. I was looking back even to when I’d played for England U15s, when I enjoyed football and had the most fun.
“It helped me analyse where I could improve, too. I like to look at the things I’m good at and make a strength into a super strength, and get clips of the things I need to improve on and see what I can tweak.”
Naz’s England debut came at the end of a season which started with new Tottenham manager Robert Vilahamn dropping her and questioning her confidence levels.
It was not an easy moment but under the guidance of the incoming manager, became another opportunity Naz would use for self-reflection.
By the end of the campaign, she had scored against Manchester United and Arsenal among seven goals in all competitions, while Spurs ended with 13 points more than the previous season, and a run to the FA Cup final.
Jessica Naz started the FA Cup final in May but saw her Tottenham side beaten 4-0 by Man Utd
“Robert coming in has helped everyone to grow their confidence, and that’s shown in the performances and the point tally,” she says.
“The cup final took some getting over but when you reflect on it, we’ve achieved so much in such a short space of time. That’s credit to the team and credit to the manager.
“He’s a very calm person, it’s the kind of manager I need – to let me play with freedom, and let me take risks. When he came in, it felt like a fresh start for me.”
In that constant cycle of self-evaluation, Naz’s next goal is to cement a regular spot in that England squad, having featured in Sarina Wiegman’s two most recent camps and made that 19-minute cameo against Ireland in July.
As usual, she’s looking at the bigger picture. “It’s just one step at a time,” she says. Sometimes it’s a cliche when people are really dreaming bigger, but with how things have mapped out to date, this is how Naz has always worked.
