From the outside, Lucia Kendall has enjoyed a rapid rise.

Within 12 months, the 21-year-old midfielder has arrived at Aston Villa, established herself in the Women’s Super League (WSL) and broken into the England team, scoring her first international goal before the end of the year. It paints the picture of a player who had arrived at the elite level fully formed.

In an interview with The Athletic, Kendall smiles at that suggestion.

“When I reflect, and think about where I was a year ago compared to now, they are two completely different places,” she says. “I definitely didn’t expect this to happen so quickly.”

Aston Villa midfielder Lucia Kendall sits down with The Athletic. (George Edward / The Athletic)

In reality, her readiness was built on years of resisting the temptation to rush.

While many of England’s brightest prospects progress through WSL academies, Kendall’s development followed a different path. She spent four seasons in Southampton’s first team, who were in the fourth tier of the English pyramid when she broke through at 16.

“It was the year of Covid when I first began training in that first-team environment,” Kendall says. “We didn’t play many games, but being around the group every day helped me so much.

“Patience was a huge part of my time there. I had to be patient, but I think that time shaped me.

“I’d always encourage young players to just go and play. The jump between youth and first-team football is big, regardless of the level. It isn’t about where you’re playing, it’s about how you develop.”

Born in Winchester, she signed for Southampton’s youth academy aged 11 — and also represented Hampshire County Cricket Club at youth level. Southampton’s women’s team was only founded in 2017, but progression up regional leagues meant their status never hampered their homegrown star.

Southampton made their debut in the third tier, the Women’s National League Southern Premier, as a 17-year-old Kendall was establishing herself in the team in the 2021-22 campaign.

Lucia Kendall in Women’s Super League action for Aston Villa last season (Suvadeep Biswas/Getty Images)

Playing as a no 10, she scored in a 2-0 win against local rivals Portsmouth to secure the title and scored twice in the National League Cup final against Huddersfield. Southampton then gained promotion to the second tier via a play-off win against Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Kendall made more than 50 appearances in the three Championship seasons that followed, featuring regularly for England’s under-19s and under-23s.

“I never felt any pressure pulling on the England shirt because there were so many good players around me,” she says. “Playing for England so young was a great experience, but it was always my club football that made me the player I was.”

By the time Villa came calling, when her Southampton contract expired in 2025, Kendall knew she was ready.

“Villa put a lot of trust in me,” she says. “I knew my technical ability and confidence meant I had the capability of playing at that level; I just had to get to grips with the speed of the WSL during my first three months.”

That adaptation occurred faster than even Kendall realised. In October, less than two months after making her first Villa start, the phone rang, catching the then 21-year-old by surprise.

“I didn’t pick up the original call, but when I saw a missed call from 15 minutes ago and a photo of Sarina (Wiegman), my first thought was ‘surely not’,” Kendall says.

“I rang her straight back and it was a special conversation. It was short, and I had never spoken to her before because I had been out of the England youth ranks for a few seasons, but it was a completely mad time in my life around then.”

Kendall made her first senior international appearance at Derby’s Pride Park, playing 90 minutes and being named player of the match in a 3-0 victory against Australia.

Yet it was her third cap, and a romantic return to Southampton’s St Mary’s Stadium, as England played against Ghana, that put things into perspective for Kendall.

“The game at St Mary’s will always stand out to me,” she says. “Not just because I scored my first England goal (the sixth-minute opener in a 2-0 win). It meant so much more because I was at home.

“I had all my family there, the people who have supported me all the way growing up. I never really get emotional on a football pitch, but when I celebrated, I had tears in my eyes. So much had built up to that.

Lucia Kendall celebrates scoring for England on home turf (Naomi Baker – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)

“England don’t play there regularly, so I was just like, ‘Wow, this is everything that I’ve worked for.’ It felt like it was meant to be. It will be a really difficult moment in my career to top.”

Speaking two days before the club’s first pre-season friendly against WSL 2 side Ipswich Town, Kendall is keenly aware the World Cup in Brazil is less than a year away.

Seven caps into her England career, she says it would be “stupid to say I don’t want to go to the World Cup”.

“Breaking into the team is one thing, staying there is another,” she adds. “We’ve got so much talent in this country so for me, it’s just focusing every day on how I can be the best at Villa. Hopefully the England stuff comes from that. I know it’s not going to be easy.”

She wants to take on an expanded role at Villa, too. They have signed seven new players ahead of the 2026-27 season after finishing ninth last season and losing their top scorer Kirsty Hanson to Tottenham Hotspur.

“Once I really feel comfortable in an environment, which I do here now, I want to be able to give as much as possible,” she says.

“I want to have more influence. Sometimes, I can have a good game but we still do not get the result we want. I want to change that, get into higher positions and take more risks now that I feel comfortable, rather than playing more safe.”

That was not how you would describe the raw and attacking player who broke through at Southampton. Kendall has become more complete since her younger goalscoring days, but is clear in her aims — including finding the back of the net more often.

“I have matured as a player and developed as a leader playing a little deeper, but I would love to be able to play all three midfield positions really effectively,” she says.

“I enjoy being at the base, starting attacks and dictating the tempo, but I am hoping to score more goals, because at the minute most of them are from that first season for Southampton.

“It probably still hasn’t really sunk in (her rise to the top) because it’s constantly just been about the next thing.”

On a night when Tyler Mahle impressed in his Braves debut, the veteran starter’s new bullpen stumbled as Atlanta’s eight-game winning streak snapped in a 3-2 walk-off loss to the New York Yankees.

After inheriting a 2-0 lead, All-Star closer Raisel Iglesias blew a save in the bottom of the ninth, allowing multiple runs for the second consecutive appearance. The Braves failed to drive in an automatic runner in the 10th before the Yankees succeeded, with Ryan McMahon delivering a bases-loaded sacrifice fly against Tyler Kinley.

Since July 3, Iglesias has pitched to a 6.75 ERA over 14 appearances. All three of his blown saves have come in that span.

The late-game letdown spoiled a strong introduction. Acquired from the San Francisco Giants on Sunday, Mahle dueled former Braves star Max Fried to a draw over six scoreless innings. (Fried was making his first start against his old team.) Among pitchers who had reached the majors before joining Atlanta, Mahle’s nine strikeouts were the most in a Braves debut since David Palmer struck out 10 batters in 1986.

Previously a glaring weakness, the Braves’ rotation has held up in recent weeks. Atlanta starters have allowed no more than three runs in 16 consecutive games, combining for a 2.02 ERA over that span. Mahle pitched to a 5.13 ERA with the Giants this season, but he demonstrated, at least for a night, that he could be a useful addition amid a playoff race.

On Friday at Yankee Stadium, neither team scored until Austin Riley launched an eighth-inning solo shot into the left-field seats. Since the All-Star break, Riley has hit .292 with five home runs in 20 games. The third baseman, in the fourth season of a 10-year, $212 million contract extension, had spent most of the first half mired in a career-worst slump; before the break, Riley batted .207 with nine home runs in 95 games.

Braves first baseman Matt Olson supplied a home run in the top of the ninth. It proved to be insufficient insurance. With one out in the bottom of the inning, Iglesias committed a costly throwing error on a tapper toward the third-base line, allowing Yankees rookie George Lombard Jr. to advance all the way to third on an infield single. Iglesias struck out McMahon, but gave up a walk between RBI hits and a hit-by-pitch before being lifted.

Because the Philadelphia Phillies also lost Friday, the Braves retained an 8 1/2-game lead in the National League East, as well as the second-best record in the major leagues.

Pep Chavarria is set to be Chelsea’s most interesting signing of the summer.

Not a typical BlueCo bet on youthful potential or a high-character veteran in his mid-thirties, Chavarria is the type of acquisition not seen at Chelsea since the summer of 2022: a player in the middle of his prime who has been profiled for his ability to do a specific job on the pitch.

A little more than a month after selling Marc Cucurella to Real Madrid for €60million (£51.7m; $69.4m), Chelsea are on track to essentially replace one diminutive 28-year-old Catalan left-back with another. Chavarria is considerably cheaper in transfer fee and salary, but has never been capped by Spain and only started playing in La Liga four years ago.

He has, however, built his career impressively to this point since breaking through for Catalan semi-professional club UE Figueres in the lower reaches of Spanish football as a teenager, and he was an important contributor to a Rayo Vallecano side who finished eighth in La Liga last season and reached the final of the UEFA Conference League, losing 1-0 to Crystal Palace.

Chavarria’s role in that Rayo side may offer some clues as to how Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso will look to use him.

Typically the starting left-back in a 4-2-3-1 that would often become a three-man defence in possession, he was given plenty of freedom to scamper up the left flank with the ball: only two full-backs completed more carries of 10 metres or more last season across Europe’s top five leagues, and 24.9 per cent of those carries were progressive.

The graphic below shows where Chavarria liked to carry the ball last season: always on the left flank and frequently through the middle third of the pitch into crossing positions.

Once there, he is very capable of picking out team-mates with inviting whipped deliveries, as he did to set up Alemao’s late winner against Alaves in October.

Rayo’s former coach Inigo Perez often paired Chavarria on the left flank with Alvaro Garcia, a very direct winger who regularly sought to drive to the byline. This tendency often opened up the opportunity for Chavarria to make the kind of underlapping runs that Chelsea supporters saw Cucurella perform regularly for Enzo Maresca, and he was adept at recognising the space.

Below is a good example which takes the form of a one-two with Pacha Espino. With a better return pass, Chavarria would have had a golden opportunity to create a goal.

Speaking of golden opportunities to create goals, here is Chavarria using his speed to break Hansi Flick’s notoriously high defensive line and dart in behind Barcelona inside the first minute of a La Liga match in March and square the ball perfectly. He deserved an assist.

Chavarria is also well-versed in more traditional overlapping runs into areas where he can cross or cut the ball back. Here he is doing just that in a 1-1 draw with Girona in May.

Chelsea’s left flank may afford Chavarria fewer underlapping opportunities if Morgan Rogers is the regular starter in that area of the pitch, but the Spaniard was as versatile as he was active as an off-ball runner at Rayo last season. There is every reason to think he could build positive attacking chemistry with a variety of different team-mates on that side.

If there is one word that best describes Chavarria, it is busy. His engine appears well suited to the relentless intensity of Premier League football: he ranked 10th among full-backs across Europe’s top five leagues last season for sprints completed per 90 minutes (defined as off-ball runs that exceed 25km/h and are sustained for at least 0.7 seconds).

It is no wonder that Andoni Iraola found Chavarria useful during his tenure as Rayo coach and so did Perez, who is very much of the same school of vertical, high-intensity running football. The 28-year-old’s speed and aggression in hunting the ball down makes him easy to incorporate into a modern pressing system.

Here he is against Strasbourg in the second leg of a Conference League semi-final tie between the two clubs in in May, hounding Diego Moreira into turning the ball over deep inside his own half and yielding an immediate shooting opportunity for team-mate Isi Palazon.

Chavarria’s defensive numbers do not jump off the page, but he is scrappy and clearly takes pride in not allowing opponents to get the better of him. Here he is using his body position and acceleration to defend in isolation against Girona winger Viktor Tsygankov, tracking him to the byline, forcing the Ukrainian to abandon all hope of crossing the ball and eventually creating a turnover.

Not unlike Cucurella, Chavarria’s size and relatively skinny frame will make him an obvious target for Premier League opponents with larger, more physically and athletically gifted attackers, but he is capable of mounting at least some resistance and if there is a particularly unfavourable match-up, Alonso can also turn to the bigger, stronger Jorrel Hato instead.

Chelsea may miss Cucurella’s uncanny knack of arriving at the back post to score important goals, as he did on several occasions for Maresca. Chavarria has not demonstrated the same instincts in the final third, though his most memorable contribution for Rayo last season was a long-range screamer against Atletico Madrid in September which had an xG value of 0.01.

It was Chavarria’s only goal of the 2025-26 season and, as the shot map below illustrates, he had several other unsuccessful attempts from similar positions:

These pot-shots are unlikely to move the needle for Chelsea in either direction. What could matter more is that Chavarria has demonstrated he is a good striker of the ball from outside the penalty area, which should prompt a reaction from opponents when he receives the ball in such positions and potentially open up spaces for team-mates.

It is far from clear whether or not Chavarria will be a regular starter for Chelsea, as Cucurella was. But even if he is not, his arrival does indicate a willingness from BlueCo to move away from making endless multi-million-pound bets on potential and target a good, seasoned player at a reasonable price who fits what their manager wants to do.