CH-CH-CH-CHANGES – Talking to Renée Slegers

Sometimes you get a chance to ask some questions at a press conference that aren’t just about the left-back inverting or that one point is almost as bad as a loss.

Chatting with Arsenal head coach Renée Slegers before they travelled north to play Manchester City – led by new coach, Andrée Jeglertz – I took the opportunity to get in some broader, contextual questions about progress, plus the changes that she’s witnessed and ones we might like to see in the beautiful game.

Warning: may contain opinions.

First off, I was curious if Renée Slegers had faced an Andrée Jeglertz’s team before, and her face lit up: 

Yes, in Sweden when I coached Rosengård, he was the Linköping coach.

How did you get on against him?

We’ve played against each other several times, you’ll have to look up the stats. But I think he’s been very impressive in the work he’s done in Sweden. I think especially that year I was coaching in Sweden at Rosengård, what he did with the Linköping team was impressive.

If you look at the players they had and the resources they had and the football they played, it was really, really good and I’ve always had a good relationship with Andree. I think he’s a great guy and a good coach.

I noted that the new Archbishop of Canterbury had literally just been announced – and for the first time ever, it is a woman, Dame Sarah Mullally.

When Slegers looked genuinely surprised, I asked her what she feels are the biggest changes she’s seen for women in football in her lifetime:

There’s so many things because when I grew up in a little village in the Netherlands, I grew up playing with boys until I was 17, because there were no girls’ teams – and I remember that we played against boys’ teams then. Opposition players, coaches and parents were very shocked when they saw girls on the pitch and I don’t think that’s there anymore, which is very, very good.

Now, in many ways, you see in leadership positions, more women referees, more women coaches, both across the men’s and the women’s game, other supporting roles in other departments.

So, yeah, there’s a lot of growth I think and I’m so happy that for the young girls growing up now (like those with Slegers and her Arsenal captain Kim Little, above), there are more role models, because I didn’t have any when I was young.

When I interviewed Chelsea and Matildas defender Ellie Carpenter recently, she suggested that all women’s sports should be broadcast ‘free-to-air’ to make them accessible to all, and I put this idea to Slegers.

On women’s sports being available to see and being approachable. I think that’s a really good idea. I do think we should put value to it as well. I think that’s the other side. If it’s valuable, then you want to invest into it and then it grows with that as well.

I also wondered if Slegers would like to see any rule changes in the game – maybe similar to those in rugby – with sin bins/ time outs.

I think the organisations are looking at rules and developing rules constantly which is a good thing. I think there are so many good ideas. It’s about how can you implement new rules that are sustainable and that work well in the game.

Yes, I mentioned favourite idea of making the offending player leave the pitch for as long as the player they’ve fouled. (Otherwise the injured party goes down to 10, while the one who committed the offence remains at full strength.)

And like every other football fan, I would like the questionable goalkeeper injuries to stop, perhaps by making the sub keeper come on for them. This might’ve been one suggestion too far though!

On all that, football is a beautiful game. We want it to be as beautiful as possible. There are so many people involved. It means so much to so many people, fans, so it needs to stay attractive. But I think when football is at the very, very highest level and there’s so much at stake, then you’re going to stretch the rules.

You play within the rules, but you’re going to stretch the boundaries and that’s what you see happening. But I think it’s very important that we keep the integrity of the game and the beauty of the game.