 I'm Rachel, I'm number five for the W League team and yes, this is my third year at the club. Yep. I'm Jordan, this is my first year at the club, I played my last two seasons at Adelaide United, so yeah I'm just here now enjoying my time, getting nice and settled and I'm ready for a good season ahead. So why do you play? Why do I play? I play mainly because I've had to sacrifice a lot to get where I am today, there's been a lot of hard work in the past and a lot of setbacks for me as well, so to play is like a privilege for me and that's why I play every day, why do you play? I play first of all because I enjoyed a lot, something I've grown up playing since I was nine, I started off with the boys and then I moved to Reps and then I went straight to Institute which kind of taught me that like professionalism and they kind of instilled that like the hard work and dedication you have to do to get it to a high level. I also play because I like being challenged, you know, I just finished my HSC last week and I'm sitting at home and I'm really bored and I'm like I have to do something all the time, so like challenging myself and getting better and knowing I have like things to improve on is really something that I enjoy. Have you ever had any experience or exposure to gender inequality? I think growing up you're kind of numb to it because you're kind of, you're just used to it. I haven't really had any like particular events that have happened to me but I think women's sport in general has always had uneven playing field, whether that's through pay or the facilities, that's something that I've noticed, just kind of opportunities in the level of like squads and what type of like teams you're allowed to be involved in. So I think I've been lucky enough because I'm pretty young that I've had those pathways that have been set from when I've been like first started so I think that like girls who are older like 20, 30, they didn't have those pathways so I think that's definitely also a difference and yeah, what about you? Yeah well I've experienced it before like obviously girls have played, when I used to play in the juniors girls used to come and play with the boys and to be fair there were better than us at that age, when you're at the age of 12 or 13 they used to, like they used to be better than us, they used to take the piss is all I was going to say but they used, and boys would be jealous and I'd, they'd be jealous because they were better than them and they'd start saying things like you know like just bad remarks yeah that you're a girl this that whatever because that's just all that they resorted to when they knew that someone was better than them so for me like that's why it doesn't make any sense to me that there there should be any inequality because they've they can show from a young age that they're very capable of doing the exact same thing as the boys are and that's why they should be given every opportunity the same as we're given from a young age, for me personally I've obviously never experienced any gender inequality for myself because we always get given, we've always had what not whatever we want but we've had a pathway there whereas girls had to have had to go through a lot of it a lot tougher path and up we have how much of you sacrifice to get where you are? I've sacrificed quite a bit obviously like we've heard before with Tarik you have to miss out on a lot of things in your social life to to aspire to be a professional footballer there's a lot of times where you can't go to an event or you can't go to a party or whatever it is because you know that you've got training the next day and you're gonna need to do the right thing by yourself and you see a lot of the time that players that don't do the right thing they never end up coming out on top because in order to get to something to be a professional you need to sacrifice a lot and not only have I had to sacrifice people around me have had to sacrifice a lot my parents probably sacrificed more than anyone to make sure that I made it as a professional footballer I never missed one training session because they were always taking me there and and to make sure that I was I was always you know always there at training yeah I think like a lot goes into it but but mainly just having to sacrifice things that normal people get to do with ease where we sometimes think that we would like to do but we can't to do that is mainly what we have to do. I think that I sacrificed a lot to be fair I don't really mind like I've enjoyed the like the pathway I've come along but I think a big one was probably school I did I just did my HSE in Lebanon which was pretty hard because I had to do like the this council in Beirut so that was really different not normal so I think that's definitely something that I've had to sacrifice like education like I could have got a lot better marks if I wasn't doing soccer but I think that from like a young age I knew that that was the pathway and that was the career I wanted to have also like my family and my I've only just got my license so I think that they've had to drive me everywhere like sacrifice time off work and you know just time out of that day a drive me and do the things that I need it was through them so also like friends socially like I'm turning 18 soon and like all my friends are going out partying and having fun and going to school is something that but I know that it's not worth it for me like if I miss training or like you've still got to earn a spot and I think that yeah like missing training or going away or you know going out partying it's just not gonna it's not gonna help me at all so I think that like prioritizing what you need to do to make it is really important and also just like family holidays as well I think I've been on a family holiday in like like five years or something so I think that's what that's also a big thing like sacrificing like kind of downtime and knowing that you know you've got to do extra trainings or go to the gym or like eat healthy and all that stuff I think that's kind of a big sacrifice as well yeah and I think with that like for sacrifices like there's a fine line between making a sacrifice and not I've seen a lot of players who who don't make the sacrifice and and maybe there's a hard hard stage there like especially for women in sport as well where you might not be getting paid that money so there's people your age that are getting jobs and and whatever else and they're earning money and you're not so you're you know you're and you're just trying to become a professional footballer and you're thinking oh well is it worth it like whatever else so I've seen a lot of a lot of players who have chosen to go into the workforce rather than continue playing because there's a hard stage to you know get into the into senior team or whatever yeah I think also on that like a lot of people may drop out of like football or not pursue that because it's not stable like I think a lot of people choose that stable job because they're going to get stable income and they know they're going to get but like when you're playing in a professional environment you've got to constantly be performing and like anything can happen you can be dropped you can be like transferred or anything can happen within like six months or a year so I think it's kind of unstable but yeah I think in the end it's worth it it's an experience and I wouldn't change it. That's why it's important for us to do things like school still because that's another thing that I had to sacrifice a lot of a lot of time at school I didn't probably concentrate enough at school when I was there because my mind was always elsewhere I always wanted to just focus on football all the time I never really thought that you know that school really mattered because I was going to be a professional football but when when you there's those tough times and you think well maybe I won't be a professional football or maybe you're not playing or whatever and you think I don't have a backup plan now like that's why it's important for us to still do it now but yeah that's obviously a sacrifice. I also think like having balance as well like when they say like oh you've got to sacrifice your social life I think that social life is really important and being like successful as an athlete because if you don't have that then you're kind of stuck in this like constant mindset of training like playing I think that it's really important also to have like a life outside of soccer because then you can like have downtime and take your mind off the game and I think it's you actually you perform better when you're more relaxed and you're not constantly like training training training so I think that's also a factor as well. I think we touched on it before like we don't have as many sacrifices as you guys because from a young age is that you know there's there's already a base there for us that we might be getting paid in the youth teams or whatever else you can feel a little bit more comfortable obviously all the social side of things and that sort of stuff but but because there's that base there we don't have to think about everything else as much and we we're still we're still sacrificing things at the same time but we feel a little bit more safe. I feel also like from my perspective like when you go and watch or you'll see all the other like the boys set up like it's so it's it seems like there's so many more boys that were playing when I was younger so I think that like I think for you and another guys playing that it was like quite hard I've a lot oh not a lot harder but it's just like there's so many more processes and lots of boys that are so many more boys that are playing that it's it's hard to get to that top level because it's just like the like the amount of guys playing by thing that's also changing because there's girls clubs being like established and there's other pathways coming through so I think that's also changing as well that's getting a lot harder for girls to make it because just the sheer number of girls playing now is just increasing a lot and yeah so I think that it is easy for you guys in some ways but due to like how many guys play and just the kind of the level you guys are training at from a young age I think it's also like a big sacrifice as well so yeah. First and like people look at how you respect someone first rather than how you know how you how you play on the pitch if you if you're a good footballer but you've got no respect you're not you're not going to get far so so yeah it respects a massive thing and for leadership I'm still a young player so I still look up to older players who have the leadership qualities because for me they help me improve every day and they always encourage me to to be better so the leadership qualities and players is very important and I if I had to say it's my younger self I just say to keep being respectful and hopefully one day be a good leader like a lot of the players that I've played with. Yeah I think like touching on you said I think that like you can't be like no coaches are going to pick a player that's just for their footballing ability that would be a good person as well and respect the players coaches and like also the fans I also think for leadership being a young player I think that there's like a stereotype that you have to be an old like established player to like acquire leadership roles in the team but I think that through just like leading not necessarily like being a captain or whatever but I think that leading like verbally on the pitch and it also off the pitch on social media and being like setting good examples I think you can also become a leader no matter what age you are and yeah like you don't have to wear the captain band to be your leader I think that everybody should leave throughout the team and I think that if I could tell my younger self that I'd be like I'd say that not to be like not to like refrain from saying something to an older player because I'm young I think that everybody's opinion is like valuable and doesn't matter what age you are you should you're both on the team for the same reason and there's no like hierarchy I think that that yeah it's important