You’ve sure enough heard of Alessia Russo. After all, she’s part of the reason for the revival of the ‘It’s Coming Home’ choruses this year. Changing the status of football by creating a safe and celebrated space for women to turn their sporting dreams into reality, Russo gets to grips with the noise of the crowd off the pitch and her christening as ‘England’s Golden Girl.’

Never have pundits welcomed a downpour of beer to be swilled over them (without a riled-up aftermath) more than they did when the England Women’s football team entered the World Cup Final. As glasses roared into the air in euphoria at this major historic moment, it was Alessia Russo who in fact secured England’s fate, for the first time ever, reaching the ultimate round of the tournament.

It’s been a mere three months since, and it’s now the morning after the night before. The night where Russo and her fellow Gunners (she recently signed for Arsenal outside of her national duties) thwarted Leicester City in a half-time comeback. Morale is high. “I think football moves so quickly that you kind of never really get a chance to sit down still,” shares 24-year-old Russo. Sitting still in this game is pretty unheard of. Even on the bench, you’re always ready to go at any point. So Russo will bask in the triumph, but not for long. “It sounds so cliché, but when you lose, for example, you’ve got to figure out quickly what went wrong and you’ve got to put it right within a week to go again. That’s what I love as a footballer. It’s crazy how the game can change so quickly.”

The game of life also went from zero to one hundred for Russo, who is now finally able to compartmentalise the spectacle of what was achieved at the World Cup and the Euros alike: the ecstasy of winning, the heartache of losing, to seeing her name splashed across the nation’s broadsheets as ‘England’s Golden Girl.’ And although endearing in theory, that’s a heavy crown to wear for someone who never thought as a woman this would be possible. ‘England’s Golden Girl’ was, in fact, doing it like the rest of us: a Bovril and a ball in the park on an arctic Saturday morning.

“I used to kick a ball around with my brothers and my dad in the park when I was around four or five years old.” She smiles as she recalls the innocence of this memory. Consider it part of the core memories catalogue in Pixar’s Inside Out; this jovial haphazard run about the park, a major pillar in discovering Russo’s future purpose. “And then as I got older I went to a boys team that my dad was coaching at the time, just like a local little grassroots team,” Russo continues. Beginning her career at Charlton Athletics Centre of Excellence, she then joined and captained Chelsea’s development squad, subsequently flocking to the USA to join North Carolina Tar Heels.

But how do you evolve from local park hero to a star on an international stage? Russo puts it humbly: “I think for women it was always a little bit different. I didn’t know this could be a career until I was about 16 or 17-years-old. But ever since I was eight or nine, I always dreamed about being a footballer.” Pause a beat. This means that for almost a decade, Russo was a child being told that their dream would never be anything more than a dream. Sure, we can’t all go to space and float around in gargantuan suits (just yet), but when it comes to Earth, why can’t a young girl find her solace out on the pitch?

For any girl or young woman that was shunted out of the way of the goal or the pitch during lunch breaks at school and told you could be a cheerleader instead, know that Russo’s fight is for all of us, and that she too was not averse to the snides and snarks of ignorance. “I’d play with boys when I was younger and everyone would look at you like, ‘Oh my God, you’ve got a girl on your team.’ Then their parents would be whispering in the crowd and pointing. Don’t get me wrong, I was ten so it didn’t bother me. I was barely aware of it. But it’s surprising just how judgemental people were about women in football.”

Today Russo, in her early twenties, adds the tenure of two major British football teams and becoming England’s forward to her name. A roster enough to stave away the haters. “I think it’s boring. We know our worth. We know what we’ve done, and we know what we want to do,” she assures. And the facts are there. The BBC announced a viewership of 12 million viewers for the World Cup Final, higher than the men’s Wimbledon final this year, according to Reuters. But the emphasis now remains on keeping viewers involved, outside of the final stages of major title tournaments. “The momentum is really building, especially in terms of the Women’s Super League,” shares Russo, the highest league of women’s football in England. “The change has happened. This is the easier part now because we’ve proved that you can believe in the women’s game. Attendance at the games shows that. But we won’t ever stop.”

And despite the deafening ruckus of society giving its two cents on what women do and why, it’s a calming space to be around Russo and her teammates. Picture a changing room of an elite football team and it’s connected with noise and pre-match chaos (Ted Lasso’s Roy Kent does little to help the misconception here). But in fact it’s a sanctuary of empowerment for Russo, allied with those around her that sport their shirts in an effort to say ‘just watch me.’ “It’s actually quite calm. I think people think there’s a lot of nerves or excitement. And there obviously is that, but there’s a calmness to it. We have music on and everyone is chatting, but it’s the time to get into your own world and get ready for the game.”

Perhaps it’s the trickle down effect from the figureheads in Russo’s career, including the magnanimous England manager, Sarina Wiegman. “She doesn’t necessarily say a whole lot, she [communicates] with her actions and how she carries herself.” This team means that you know you’ve got to step up and be ready to perform. She sets the standard so high.” Heeding the advice from the woman who got England into a World Final for the first time since 1966 (Wiegman for PM please), you’ll find Russo pitchside, psyching herself up for that same fighting spirit, moments before the match with her regimented set of jumps – seven to be precise – for good luck. “I don’t know how the habit started actually. But it’s definitely stuck. Seven is a big number to me. My brother was born on the 7th, my dad used to play with the number seven and my mum and dad got married in July, the seventh month of the year.” The pre-match rituals are in their plenty in this beautiful game (George Best’s chocolate treat, Rio Ferdinard’s more quizzical smashing of a water bottle over his head.) But heck, stranger things have happened, like having to prove the worth of women’s football.

In creating a level playing field, perhaps an underestimated archetype Russo and her comrades are giving a middle finger to is the distance between footballer and fan. Russo isn’t caught up in the paraphernalia that comes with being on an international stage. The lights, the glamour, the outpour of admiration, false or otherwise. Off the pitch, she carries the same ethos of being the best she can be, and shares that with the real ones around her. “It is something as I get older that I try to do more and more. It’s so important to switch off and recharge, because it can get crazy sometimes. I like to go out and explore little towns, go shopping, go for coffee or make memories with my friends in nice restaurants.”

The fanfare of Alessia Russo in the press was a lot. To fight so hard to get somewhere, and then to dominate the maelstrom of conversation isn’t easy work, and in the commotion of celebrating England’s new frontier of voices, and signing to a new team, it’s still the fact that her Nan is coming over from Sicily for Christmas that means the most right now. “It’s a place where I have such strong memories of playing in summer as we’d go out to visit my family,” she shares of her paternal heritage. “It felt like a total refresh to go there after the Euros. Being in the public eye took a little bit of getting used to. It’s definitely not something that I ever thought would happen or that I say I particularly love being part of. But I think it’s important to recognise that we have a platform to help inspire people, to help inspire young girls.”

As for now, Russo wants to get on with keeping North London red, learning the piano and to stop clicking her fingers because her mum hates it. She knows Rome can’t be built overnight, though. You can add ‘meet hero Lionel Messi’ to the list too. “He’d be the only person I’d get starstruck by.” Of course, they call Messi the GOAT, but Russo is showcasing her GOAT-worthy future enough, as a conscientious athlete, using sports as a means to educate in the hope to finally put the beautiful back into the beautiful game. They say a girl can only dream. How wrong they were.