Is it really love if it's not you? //Alessia Russo//

Prologue

Jaedyne Connell, born in the north of London to parents Greg and Heidi Connell, is an extremely talented footballer. When Jaedyne was just a couple months old, the Connell family moved back to her mother's hometown of Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Growing up Jaedyne was known for multiple reasons namely, her talent on the pitch, her passion for the sport and mainly the multiple academy's she has played for, with the likes of Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Liverpool among the list of youth squads she has been a part of.

After making her Arsenal senior debut when she was only 15 years old, she had an amazing couple of years with the club, winning the BWSL in the 2018/19 season and winning the Ballon d'or in 2018 being the youngest and first women to win the award.

But disaster struck in 2019. Everything had come to an unexpected halt.

Her form started deteriorating game by game and quite frankly, so did her mental health.

After some long and difficult decision making, she had come to the conclusion that she needed a bit of change in scenery and so she applied to the University of North Carolina. And got in.

She was extremely excited as Alessia Russo and Lotte Wubben-Moy, two of her best friends from the England youth squad, were also going to UNC.

Together, the trio from the UK conquered college soccer and helped UNC to multiple trophies and also achieving some personal accolades.

However, in 2020 the three girls were approached by professional clubs, Jaedyne and Lotte to Arsenal and Alessia to Manchester United (which Jaedyne wasn't happy about, being a Liverpool fan her whole life).

However, in 2021 a couple months before the Euro's was originally supposed to take place, Jaedyne tore her ACL but just to her luck, after tearing her ACL for the 4th time, the Euro's was postponed to the summer of 2022.

But that meant 9 months of hard work to even be remotely fit to play in the Euro's.

And after multiple set backs, here we are, in Switzerland. The last game before the Euro's.

And if it wasn't for Sarina Wiegman, who believed in her, she most likely wouldn't be here due to the fact that she had just recovered from tearing her ACL and hadn't made her return to the pitch just yet.