Seattle Reign midfielder Jess Fishlock, 38, scores history-making goal for Wales at Euro 2025

Yahoo

10-07-2025

Servitude: the state of being subject to something more powerful than yourself.
This is how Wales manager Rhian Wilkinson described what makes Jess Fishlock so special to Wales fans with the final answer of her post-match press conference following Wales' 4-1 Euro 2025 group stage defeat to France on Wednesday.
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'I don't think you have many players anywhere in the world who are such servants to their nation,' she said.
The question is effectively a riddle. Because how do you measure the sky? And really, the notion of Fishlock — Wales' all-time record-cap holder, men's or women's (164), all-time record goalscorer, men's or women's (48) and, as of Wednesday, Wales Women's first major tournament goalscorer — being subject to anything is quite frankly unfathomable.
The Seattle Reign midfielder is less a player in her home nation and more an irrepressible force of nature, the very reason Wales are in Switzerland in the first place. (In qualifying for the Euros, the 38-year-old was directly involved in nine goals — six goals, three assists — in 10 matches.)
Wednesday's defeat represented Wales' 244th international match since 1993. Since making her debut in 2006 against Switzerland, Fishlock has played in 164 matches. She has been a part of more than 67 per cent of the team's modern history. 'And she's flying from Seattle, Washington,' said Wilkinson. 'That's a terrible flight.'
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But even 67 per cent feels too slight a representation of her importance. From those early days of bleached blonde wisps flitting around Cardiff, then Bristol, then Melbourne and eventually Seattle. Then, the red Wales shirt streamed off her shoulders the way men's long-sleeve shirts do on women who are 5ft 2in (157cm). It's this shirt Fishlock infamously took a pair of scissors to, slashing off the sleeves of the borrowed kit provided by the FAW for a match in scorching summer heat played in front of a smattering of family and friends.
The moment inspires its own kind of lore. Fishlock has never been afraid to challenge, whether it's opponents, the system, Wales' very understanding of itself and the world's of Wales.
She is a two-time Champions League winner with Frankfurt (2014-15) and Lyon (2018-19). She was the NWSL's most valuable player in 2021. In her prime, Fishlock was a player capable of reducing the midfield to obscurity, an irrepressible smirk engulfing her face as she seamlessly covered the pitch.
Yet, any domestic triumph always came at odds with Wales' history of near misses. The result was Fishlock almost existing as a tragic myth.
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But still, she flew from Seattle.
'Wales haven't quite made it to the world stage,' said Wilkinson, who played and coached against Fishlock during her time in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) with Portland Thorns. 'But now Jess is on it. She scores that goal. And everyone knows that's one of those moments we should celebrate.'
That Wales' first goal in Switzerland would arrive through anyone but Fishlock was a nonstarter. Just as it was John Charles in 1958 in Sweden for Wales, Gareth Bale in 2016 in France, main characters who transcend their poetic tropes. Before Wales' women's teams were given names on the back of their shirts in 2019, Fishlock's was the one people could reel off, a byword for Welsh women's football.
And perhaps that is lazy script writing from the football gods. Fishlock herself would cringe. 'I can't play the game by myself. I don't try to, and I don't need to,' she told in October 2024.
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But even in this space — in fading twilight, her legs a slower whirring, injuries refusing to abate, the oldest goalscorer in Euros history — Fishlock's presence for Wales is a default setting.
So in the brutalist chill and blinding night lights of St Gallen's Kybunpark, there was Fishlock at the back post with 13 minutes on the clock. There she was meeting Ceri Holland's cross and willing the moment into being by sheer force of desire and personality. Because it has been 19 years for Fishlock but so much longer for this team. The ball cradled into the back of the net because there was nowhere else for it go. Every possible misfortune and near-miss had been endured by this point.
And because it is Wales, there was still a moment of purgatory, a forced waiting at the gates for a credential check, before the VAR's confirmation ushered in the red rope lifts and Wales. Scoring at this tournament is not the most exclusive of clubs, but it is one that matters for a team whose chances of lifting the trophy were just 0.2 per cent, according to Opta.
Wales need a five-goal swing and the game of their lives on Sunday against reigning European champions England to escape Group D. But in a group of such meagre hope, it is about relishing the slivers of light that break through.
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'We're not naive, we're minnows,' said Wilkinson. 'But we're at the very cusp of what we're going to be doing in Wales with women's football. Jess is leading that charge.'
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Wales, OL Reign, Women's Soccer, Women's Euros
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