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Photo by Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images
She is the first Liverpool player to score 20 WSL goals.
Natasha Dowie scored the opening goal for Liverpool on Sunday against Manchester City. It was her first goal since returning to Liverpool in January. In doing so, she helped her team notch a big win and also made club history. She is now the first Liverpool player to score 20 WSL goals since the league formed in 2010.
A combination of a small number of games per season and the vagabond nature of women’s football makes this quite a neat achievement for Dowie, who is currently on loan to her former club from Reading.
Dowie admits that she knew that milestone was looming and was thrilled to finally hit it on Sunday.
“But I’m buzzing, I’m not going to lie! I love scoring goals,” she said. “I knew I had this record as well, so I just wanted to get it over the line and I’m so, so happy.”
While she loves to score, what she loved more was the fortitude that the players showed against City under hard circumstances.
“Credit to the girls, we haven’t got a big squad and are short on numbers,” she admitted. “But to produce the performance we did – especially after the game midweek and getting back late in the early hours of Thursday morning at 4am – is just brilliant and it shows the future of this club. It’s promising, it really is, and a lot of us actually haven’t played together. That’s probably the first time me and Katie Stengel have played up front as a two – it’s building partnerships.”
Big news in the Liverpool world is that Leanne Kiernan is back in training after a season of watching from sidelines. That’s yet another player that Dowie will have to get used to, but I doubt she’s complaining. There are two more games for Kiernan to possibly make an appearance before the end of the season.
But if the other 11 teams thought they had been spared the threat that Kiernan poses, Liverpool confirmed their safety and that they’d be staying in the WSL for another year.
Whether the 35-year-old Dowie will be with the Reds to enjoy that remains to be seen, but for right now, the goalscorer gets to enjoy a job well done and three more points in the bank.
