Jess Carter exclusive: Lionesses star on Euro 2025 glory, adjusting to life in the NWSL with Gotham and how women's football in the U.S. 'deserves to be on a higher pedestal' like in England

It's a point Carter makes right towards the end of her chat with GOAL, when delving into the off-pitch experiences she’s had in her 15 months or so Stateside. Talk of enjoying the beaches on the west coast, the variety of cuisines across the country and the NFL has gone by when the England star is asked if there is anything she misses about the country she calls home. “I wouldn't say I miss home,” she responds. “I do really love it here. Of course, I miss my family and my close friends that are in the UK still.”

There is then barely a pause before Carter delves into a particular difference between the two countries that she has observed. “I do think there's still a long way for the women's game to go in the U.S,” she says. “It's not at the level that it needs to be yet, from off the pitch stuff, not even just the football. It's away from that. I could walk around here wearing a Gotham top and people still don't know who Gotham are. Women's football deserves to be on a higher pedestal than what it is here in the U.S.”

There are cultural reasons that play a part in those differences, ones Carter notes herself. After all, women’s football “has many other sports to be competing with” in the U.S, whereas in England “football is the biggest sport”. But there’s clearly still a desire from Carter to play her part in growing the game even further in a country that has incredible history in it.

Indeed, for almost 23 years, the 90,185 attendance for the 1999 Women's World Cup final at the Rose Bowl, in Los Angeles, stood as a world-record for the women's game and the U.S – a four-time world champion - has spawned some of the biggest names the sport has ever known, be it Mia Hamm, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan or any of its current crop, such as Trinity Rodman. Throw in the massive off-pitch impact those USWNT stars have had and the country is a monumental player in the sport - it just has a stature within its own borders that can still grow. 

“I do miss how big women's football is in the UK, but I definitely think the U.S. has the ability to get to that level,” Carter adds.

It’s part of the reason she was keen to get involved with e.l.f. Beauty, too, despite describing herself as “not really a make-up girlie”.

“Once I saw the brief and I saw what they wanted to do, I think I felt like I couldn't say no to it, because I think that it gave me an opportunity to just show who I am. It was a really authentic piece,” she explains. “The fact that they wanted to work with me, someone who doesn't really wear make-up, shows that they wanted to be authentic. Rather than it being all about image it’s about showing who you are and being a really good representation for younger people that may look like me, which I didn't have growing up.”

Partaking in different initiatives with Gotham that engage with and encourage young girls at local teams is another area where Carter is trying to do her bit for the game as a whole, with it no surprise how passionate she is to see the sport grow given what she has experienced back home in England.

As part of a Lionesses team which has become the pride of a nation, she’s seen attendances skyrocket, interest go through the roof and, as a consequence, the desire among young girls to try and emulate their heroes grow with it.

“I never really thought about being a role model,” she says. “I was just kicking a ball around and it gradually happened. The more I speak to people and I see more young girls that say that I'm their role model, I think that's a pretty incredible thing to be able to just show exactly who I am and that being okay and good enough for the little girls to see that they can be what they want to be, really.”

That passion to help take the game forward in the U.S. also clearly comes from how much Carter is enjoying her time there, so much so that she flew back to Gotham, based in New York and New Jersey, straight after England’s Euro 2025 triumph, missing a chunk of the Lionesses’ celebrations. “The girls were like, 'Why are you here? Why are you not in England celebrating?'” she recalls with a laugh. “I think that's a really nice thing that they wanted me to go.

“To be honest, I didn't feel comfortable missing out on another game. I feel like we were under-performing a little bit at Gotham and I wanted to be back to try and help get those points. I love being here, I love playing for Gotham and I'm really happy here.”

Carter has more than played her part in helping the team get back on track, too, with Gotham losing just twice since the Euros ended. “I think everyone feels like we're doing better but there's still a lot of things that we need to improve on if we want to be successful in the play-offs,” she says. “We're just taking each day as it comes and trying to work hard in training to fix those things that we want to improve on.”

It's a response that serves as a reminder of the six years Carter spent at Chelsea before moving to Gotham, because it is exactly the sort of thing that someone obsessed with winning would say. The 27-year-old lifted no fewer than 11 trophies before calling time on that chapter of her career, including five successive league titles, and the mentality that was required to be part of that winning machine has absolutely stuck with her. It's never more evident than when GOAL asks if it has sunk in that Carter is now a two-time European champion, after helping England defend their Euro 2022 title in Switzerland in July. “No, not really,” is her honest answer.

“I feel like I've just kind of got back into football and just got on with things. I think that maybe through playing with Chelsea - I don't know if it's a good or bad thing - I just learned it's like, 'Okay, great that you won, but now it's [what's] next. You've just got to go again and go again'. I guess that is what I learned from, luckily, being a bit of a serial winner at Chelsea, that kind of mentality. But Gotham is also teaching me to enjoy those celebrations, to enjoy those moments. They're great moments to have. I'm trying to do a little bit of both.”

Carter has already had a chance to do so after Gotham clinched the CONCACAF W Champions Cup back in May, beating Tigres in the final: “You have to start to create that winning mentality but to do that, you've got to win a trophy in the first place, in order to learn what you've got to do to be successful. I think that's a really good start to see what we have achieved, but also to see what we need to continue doing and improve on in order to be more successful going forward.”

Helping to deliver success to Gotham is requiring different attributes from Carter than it did at Chelsea, too. For starters, there’s the fact that being at the top of the table at the end of the NWSL regular season doesn’t deliver the big title – winning the play-offs does. “First, you've got to make play-offs and then when you get there, you've still got to be at your best and improving, even, going into the end of the season,” she explains. “Whereas sometimes, when I've been at Chelsea, the league is kind of done.”

The knockout element of the final games of the season has also forced Carter to tweak her own preparation a little bit. “I'd like to say I prepare for every game the same but I think you definitely have to be even more on it for play-offs than you do in your regular season games,” she notes.

At Chelsea, the club had built an all-star squad, packed with world-class talent. In the NWSL, however, there’s a little more parity between rosters, meaning Carter is now often thinking, “How do I push my own standard and also try to bring the level of other people up as well? I'm having to learn a lot more about myself and how I can be better too, which is really great.”

Perhaps one of the most notable adjustments, though, is the travelling, especially when she has to make long flights back to England for international duty as well as racking up the air miles while playing for Gotham in the NWSL and CONCACAF competition. Some of those Lionesses camps also fall into Carter’s off-season, as the U.S. calendar runs from March to November, and she is extremely honest in admitting that, having only had to deal with that once so far, she hasn’t quite figured out how to balance the situation yet.

“I really struggled with that last February because I'd been in pre-season for like two weeks. I went into [England] camp feeling really not ready at all,” Carter admits. “That was my first time managing that and trying to manage needing to be totally off and resting, so I can be ready to go again for the next season, with the load and the travel and everything, but also training enough to be fit enough for camp.

“Sarina [Wiegman] and the team were really understanding and really helpful in trying to get me up to the level. But going into the next season, I've learned the things that do and don't work, so I'm hoping to be able to implement those things for my off-season this time around and be ready if I'm called upon for the next camps.”

Carter’s inclusion of the word ‘if’ is certainly modest, given how consistently Wiegman has picked the defender since her appointment back in 2021. The 27-year-old has missed just one camp in that time, played an important squad role in the Euro 2022 triumph, shone in England’s run to the 2023 Women’s World Cup final and was again a starter at Euro 2025, saving her best performance of the tournament for the final in a dramatic win over Spain.

Now, she’s back home to celebrate that achievement with the supporters, as the Lionesses begin their ‘homecoming series’, which will see them take the trophy to four locations up and down the country, starting with the Etihad Stadium on Saturday when they face South American champions Brazil.

“I always love playing for the England fans,” Carter beams, ready to watch them turn out in their numbers again for a team that has certainly won the hearts of a nation.