Manchester United star reflects on Champions League exit
Hayley Ladd of Wales in action. Wales v Kazakhstan in FIFA Women's World Cup Qualifier at Parc y Scarlets on the 17th September 2021. Credit: Lewis Mitchell
It’s not often that someone’s club ambitions are a mirror image to their national team’s ambitions, but that’s the predicament Hayley Ladd finds herself in.
For club, Ladd plays for a Manchester United team that are ever-growing, especially after narrowly missing out on the WSL title last season.
This season, as a result of their strong finish, they qualified for the Champions League, but fell at the final hurdle, losing 4-2 on aggregate to PSG.
Ladd didn’t play any part in the second leg tie, but the disappointment of not being able to help her side reach a European group stages was clear to see.
“The result on Wednesday was definitely tough, I think there was a goal that obviously could have been, but whatever. It was definitely hard to take.
“Everyone left everything out on the pitch and in terms of United, we’re early on our journey so to qualify for the first time for the qualification stages and to beat someone like PSG would have been a huge leap speaking realistically and I’m really proud of the squad and the challenges we faced.
“Now the attention turns back to the league and really get that league form going again.”
In many ways, what United are trying to do mirrors what Wales are trying. Both are trying to grow as entities, play a style of football that’s easy on the eye, and both have an ultimate goal of thriving on a European stage.
“With Wales it feels like a longer journey just in terms of time frame but come to think of it, there probably is a matter of overcoming a hurdle, a big ambition.
“But wherever you get to, if you get to the Champions League, you want to get somewhere else. In terms of being a professional, you always have those goals in mind, especially in terms of the team ambition.
“And for me, I feel like I’m in two really good environments in that I feel like we’re thriving, we want to be vulnerable, to learn, to be better and support each other. Both environments are really cohesive and supportive in that.”
Club ambitions are set aside for Ladd for the next week or two, as she and the rest of the Wales squad prepare to resume their Nations League campaign.
In their last game, Cymru suffered a 5-1 defeat to Denmark at Cardiff City Stadium. The result was so uncharacteristic for this Welsh team, especially as they pride themselves on being defensively sound.
Ladd is certainly a defensive leader, and, while acknowledging the defence need to tidy up a few things, knows that mistakes will happen against the top teams.
“I think from the defensive point of view, I’m harder on myself and the backline. If they’ve had five opportunities to score in the way they have bar the penalty, we have to be better. And that’s absolutely fine.
“We’re up for the challenge and we know there are such little margins for error as well.
“We’re happy with setting our standards that high and knowing that when we play these next two games, we’ll definitely have mistakes and things to learn from and we’ll be a better team for it.”
This set of matches sees Wales play two away games: one against Germany, and the other against Denmark.
On paper, the games are enough to make any Wales fan toss and turn during their sleep, especially with two losses in the group already.
Attention may already be turning to the game against Iceland in December, as it looks like the winner of that one will stay in League A.
However, Ladd isn’t looking at these upcoming games as a free-hit and is in fact relishing the challenge of trying to take points away from two top sides.
“I think for me personally, it’s perhaps a bit of redemption, especially after that Denmark game. I’m not looking ahead to any other fixtures.
“Obviously, we just want to hit these games with as much energy and passion as possible. We’re not happy with the way the Denmark game went and we’re ready to really make those teams hurt and show them what we’re capable of doing.
“And I think if we go back to our basics, our foundation of that stability defensively, I think we can really hurt teams on the break and through other means. So, an opportunity to put things right.”
Wales take on Germany in Sinsheim on Friday, with the game live to watch on BBC2 Wales. Kick-off is at 16:45.
