The Barclays Women’s Super League is becoming more competitive with each passing year and there was never more evidence of that than on the opening weekend. Liverpool, last season’s Barclays Women’s Championship winners, celebrated their return to the top division with a dramatic 2-1 win over reigning champions Chelsea.
It was a closely-fought contest that was ultimately decided by three penalty calls. It was Katie Stengel who took the weight on her shoulders and shrugged it aside as she expertly converted two spot kicks to secure the win for her team.
When speaking in the post-match media huddle, Stengel discussed her penalty technique in detail.
“I think we worked really hard and we’re very happy to have a win,” Stengel said.
“I said to myself ‘take your time, don’t mess it up, everyone’s looking at you’. I think I just wanted to wait, take a breath, make sure I didn’t freak out. There was no pressure on me, the keeper had to make the save, so I just had to make sure that I put it away and it was my day today.
“It’s technique at the end of the day. You make sure you don’t mess it up because you rushed it, so take a breath and stick with what you are going to do before you walk up.”
Few would have tipped the Merseyside club to take all three points from the game, especially given the level of opposition that they came up against. Stengel and her teammates knew the task that was ahead of them if they were going to take anything from the game.
She said “They’re an amazing side. For 90 minutes, we had to defend a lot but we knew coming into the game they were going to be a strong side.
“We also knew that we had to believe in ourselves and I think you saw that. It took us time to grow into the game but I think we finally grew into that belief that we can compete in this league and we’ve proven that today.
“It was a rough start but it woke us up. They scored in the first few minutes so there’s 89 minutes score, we had the rest of the game. We knew we had a good game plan, we knew we had the fight and the grit behind us, we saw that. We saw that we had to grind for 90 minutes but we had plenty of time to score. Obviously, they didn’t make it easy, they were incredibly strong for the whole game.”
The hosts rarely looked overwhelmed in the game despite going behind so early on and Stengel acknowledged that a huge part of that was down to 3,006 fans who were in attendance at Prenton Park.
“I think you could tell that even after the first goal, we had momentum,” Stengel said. “You could hear the crowd and hear the energy. Everyone felt it and we said ‘let’s go for it’.
“We’re here to compete, we’re not here to survive.”
Liverpool will now turn their attentions to a Merseyside derby against Everton at Anfield next weekend.