Featuring stamps from El Salvador, Costa Rica, Mexico and more, Jess Carter’s passport looks more like one belonging to a gap-year student than an England international as of late. Throw in all the flying that comes with playing your club football in the United States, for Gotham FC, and the two-time European champion must have more air miles than she knows what to do with. “I feel like you get used to it and then all of a sudden you don't,” Carter tells GOAL of all the travelling, just days before boarding her umpteenth flight of the year to report for Lionesses duty. “Everything you've then learned about how to manage yourself kind of goes out the window when you end up being on the west coast for 12 days.”
It's one of many new things the 27-year-old has had to adapt to since making the switch from Chelsea to Gotham in the summer of 2024. Be it the emphasis in American sports of winning in the play-offs rather than coming out on top in the regular season, the incredible top-to-bottom parity the NWSL has in comparison to England’s Women’s Super League or the misalignment of the U.S. and European seasons, and how that impacts her on some of the Lionesses’ camps, there are a lot of differences between what Carter is experiencing now and what she had been exclusively exposed to before.
But as she talks through each of those factors with a huge smile on her face, it’s clear that the England defender has taken it all in her stride. “I think it’s the happiest I’ve been in football in a long time,” she admits, even if, having been part of the Lionesses’ two European Championship triumphs and their run to the Women’s World Cup final in between, she misses how big a deal the women’s game is back home, compared to in the U.S.
Getty Images'Women's football deserves to be on a higher pedestal in the U.S.'
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.
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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.”
Imagn ImagesStraight back to work
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.”
Getty ImagesSerial winner
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.”