Hayley Raso: My Game in My Words
Athletic Achievement

Hayley Raso: My Game in My Words

May 23, 2024
8 mins read
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In this My Game In My Words series, The Athletic builds towards the Women’s World Cup by talking to leading players around the world to find out how they think about football, why they play the way they do and to reflect — through looking back at their key career moments — on their achievements so far. In-person photography is done using Google Pixel.

Manchester City’s Hayley Raso, having just been named in Australia’s provisional 29-player squad for this summer’s home Women’s World Cup, did not anticipate that football would take her all over the world. She certainly was not thinking about that during her formative years, when playing meant filling in for her brother Lachlan’s local team.

She is no stranger to travel, having played with the Matildas since 2012, making 70 appearances for her country and representing them in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup and 2020 Tokyo Olympics. These achievements are made even more impressive given Raso suffered a traumatic back fracture in 2018, after which she was told there was no guarantee she would walk again.


Photo: Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images)

On the domestic stage, the 29-year-old winger spent five years playing in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL); two years at Washington Spirit and three years with the Portland Thorns. Raso, who made 80 appearances in the NWSL, recalled feeling well-suited to the league’s athleticism but decided to move to Everton in 2020 and, later, Manchester City in 2021, to develop the technical aspects of her game in the burgeoning Women’s Super League (WSL).

There are rumours the next chapter of her career will take her to Real Madrid, having left City upon the expiry of her contract at the end of last season.

She meets The Athletic in her final few weeks at City to take us through video clips of her best goals and skills; The Athletic has picked some and Raso others.


Photographed on Google Pixel

In person, she is softly spoken but businesslike, with an understated air of coolness about her. She has a handful of piercings in each ear, wears bracelets she makes herself from a kit she ordered on Amazon — a friend spotted the box one day and now she is tasked with making them for everyone — and has a quiet confidence. Extraordinary things, after all, tend to be less impressive to those who do them.

“I love taking on players, and dribbling at players is my favourite thing to do,” she grins. On her preferred angle for shooting: “I don’t mind. I’ll take it around the ’keeper.”

It does not take long to unearth a particularly impressive example — this one from Everton’s 5-0 win over Brighton in March 2021. Raso receives the ball deep in the opposition half and runs into the box, coasting past the onrushing Emma Koivisto, then taking on centre-back Victoria Williams, who seems to materialise from nowhere. She fires amid a pack of bodies — including another defender sliding to make a last-ditch challenge — into the bottom corner. It is the first goal in a perfect hat-trick.

“I beat the first one and then I’m like: I’ll go again, I’ll go again,” Raso says. “As I beat, like, two or three of them-” — she breaks off, laughing self-deprecatingly at the absurdity of it all — “I can see the ’keeper comes out as well. The moment she steps out, I know the goal is free for me to score. I see I can just slot it past her.”

In those moments, does time slow for her? Goals of that nature seem to involve assimilating huge amounts of information frighteningly quickly. “If I’m dribbling at a ’keeper or running in behind — in those moments it does,” she explains.

“I was thinking, should I go round? Should I chip it? Should I shoot early? Should I not? You have so many thoughts in your head. It does slow down a little bit. Goals like this are the best: where I’m able to dribble, keep the ball close, keep the ball tight to me and finish among all of those players.”

This is a newer component to her game, and it’s one staff at City were especially keen for her to hone: pace. Raso’s earlier coaches were eager to exploit this and for years their plans for her were “always about getting in behind. When I was younger, I didn’t do technical sessions with coaches and close ball control. But more recently, the area I’ve developed is about moving the defender, going one-v-one, close ball control, dribbling”.

Mostly, she says, her style is the product of coaching and “breaking down” video analysis of the “attributes that I’m naturally gifted with”.

That versatility is in evidence in City’s 6-0 win over Bristol City in the Continental Cup this year.

As seen below, Raso holds her place out wide before bending inside, still parallel with the touchline, to latch onto midfielder Filippa Angeldahl’s pass. A touch drags her into the box before she shoots low across goalkeeper Olivia Clark.

“It’s about knowing whether to stay wide or to cut across the line and run in,” Raso explains. “Being able to run in off the line like this just sends you closer to goal. I quite liked the finish on this one, though.

“As I get closer to the keeper, you can see she covers the near post. I try to kick it across her into the side netting, but in those moments, you can either go high and hit it into the roof or go across her. She comes to close the near post, so I go across her.”

Why didn’t she go for either top corner? “Going high and near post is a difficult one to save, but it was because of the way she covered the goal. I saw the opening to the right side of her and thought I’d slot it there. I just hit it with my laces with enough power that she wasn’t able to even react to get back across to block it.”

In moments like those, Raso’s strength is her ability to read the situation in front of her: when a goalkeeper comes out late, or to the edge of the 18-yard box, Raso has the space to cut past her. Her goal to force extra time in last year’s FA Cup final saw her keeping tight to Magdalena Eriksson in the knowledge the Chelsea defender could surrender a foul given the momentum of the Alex Greenwood pass they were both chasing.

We move on to one of the goals Raso has selected.

“It was just so special because of the significance behind it,” Raso says. “It was my first time coming into camp after coming back from my back injury.”

In August 2018, a knee to the back during a game for Portland Thorns fractured three vertebrae.


(Photo: Daniel Bartel/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

“It was really traumatic for me,” she says quietly. “I went into a rehabilitation hospital where I learned to do everything again. I remember the first time they got me standing up. I was in a big walking frame. I only had to take a couple of steps to get to the window. I could remember taking a couple of steps, holding onto the window and just crying because it was so painful and so much for me.”

The walking frame became a walking stick. Four weeks on, she began her football-specific rehabilitation. The touches and movements rushed back. The goal came six months after the back injury.

“I remember when I ran off and celebrated, I was just thinking that everything was worth it,” Raso says. “All the rehab and recovery I went through was worth it. You can see the emotion in my celebration.”

Is she proud now, looking back? “I am when I think about lying there after the injury, being in hospital and literally not being able to do anything for myself. I’m really proud of the fact I not only came back, but I’m still playing at the highest level and doing what I love.”

We watch the goal, from Australia’s 2-0 win over New Zealand in the 2019 Cup of Nations. Amy Harrison wins the ball in midfield and finds Raso outside the area. Raso’s run is jinking but decisive: she pulls right, past defenders Meikayla Moore and Ali Riley, carving open the space to slot low into the far corner.

“I peel off to the side,” Raso says. “I see the defender coming in, so I just try to cut her — because I can see if I can beat her on the outside, I’m probably clear on goal. It’s just a little touch with the outside of my foot. I try to manipulate the ball so I can get the defender a little bit off-balance. It’s just about continually moving the ball, moving the defender so I’m able to get a little bit of distance between me and her to get a shot off.”

Her athleticism is at home in the intense, high-pressing style Australia have explored under head coach Tony Gustavsson. A clip from the Matildas’ 2-0 win over Thailand is a case in point. Raso wins back the ball in midfield, plays off Emily van Egmond and gallops into the box ahead of a couple of defenders, shooting towards the near post.

“I like this one because it starts with the other team having the ball,” Raso says. “Part of my game (is) I defend well from the front and I’m tenacious. I like to press. I like the counter-attacking kind of game. In this moment, it’s all about my positioning. I like combining with another player because as soon as you play the ball and get off the back shoulder of the defender, they can’t really catch you.”

Does she see the two players giving chase? “Once I’ve beaten the defender and I’m in a situation where I’m at goal, I don’t even think about (it). I trust that my pace and strength will be able to hold me off in that moment. But all my focus, once I’m in a position like this, is about scoring and where I’m going to put the ball rather than if I’m going to get caught.”

She celebrates by making the letter A with her fingers, fulfilling the promise she made before the game to her niece, Ayla. “In games after this, when I scored, she was asking: ‘Did she do an A? Did she do an A?’” Raso smiles. Theirs is the kind of family to wake up at 2am and 4am to watch her games, to fly across the world a handful of times a season to see her play in person.

She only began playing football to keep up with her older brother, Lachlan, filling in when his team were short on numbers. “Everyone used to say I was pretty good at it, but I didn’t really like it,” Raso recalls. “I didn’t want to play. I can remember playing with the boys and just thinking, I don’t want to do this. But the more and more I played and the better I was, I’d stand out among those boys. That was when I realised I am actually pretty good at this.”

Even back then, her grandmother would make ribbons for her to match her kits. The tradition persists. “She sends me a bunch because a lot of the fans ask me for my ribbon and want me to sign it and give it away,” Raso says. “It’s special for her that she’s able to get me something that I’m wearing every game and she’s back home in Australia watching me and sees that.”

This summer offers them a chance to see her up close — and for Australia to be steeped in World Cup fever. In preparation, the team’s official store has prepared a range of Matildas merchandise. Among their stock? Yellow and gold ribbons embossed with Raso’s signature.

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The My Game In My Words series is part of a partnership with Google Pixel. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.

(Top photo: Getty; Lynne Cameron/Manchester City; design: John Bradford)





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