From Barcelona To...

Chapter 4: Time Flies

By the time I was 22, I had been a part of the first team for 1 year, I had made my debut and played a few games throughout that first season, getting some much needed minutes under my belt as part of the first team squad. It was incredible and every day I was grateful and appreciative of what I had, I was literally living my dream every single day. Ok, so I knew how good I was and how good I could become, but my feet never left the ground, I always remained grounded, humble and remembered where I came from. I was never going to let football and the new lifestyle I had change my core values.

I had signed yet another contract extension with Barcelona, I had various offers from other clubs around the world, including back home in England. But I honestly loved it in Barcelona, the team, coaches and medical staff had become my family. Moving away at such a young age meant I had to grow up, real quick, but the club honestly couldn't have done enough for me. They had literally sorted everything for me and I would be eternally grateful to them.

I was always honest with them though, they knew eventually I wanted to return back home to England but I always said I would remain open and honest with them.

Time Skip....

I was now 24 and an established first team player in the squad. I had an incredible last couple of seasons, picking up a couple of awards along the way, including a player of the year award and the golden boot in the last season. Yes, the golden boot as an attacking midfielder.

I was also often reported on in the media...

"Ellie Jones has had another incredible season at Barcelona, she is so technically gifted with magic feet. Her body and ball glide around the pitch like they are one, she is not nicknamed 'Twinks' for no reason! She is an assist machine and an incredible goal scorer, often scoring absolute worldies from outside the box. Not only is she magic on the ball, but what she does off the ball often goes unnoticed, constantly making runs into space, tricking the opposition and guiding the team around the pitch. Barcelona has some incredible talent, they are the best team in the world and Jonesy slots right in, playing a crucial role. Some say that Jonesy sometimes lets her passion and feisty nature get in the way, she is not scared of defending, often picking up yellow cards, sometimes the passion spills over and she has picked up two straight red cards during her time at Barcelona so far. Her coach doesn't want Ellies passion to change as that's what makes her the player she is but has said she needs to sometimes learn to keep her cool and not let it spill over as much."

I never read too much into the reports, in fact, I was always a little embarrassed when they wrote good things about me. I was always just focused on the team as a whole and wanting to be the best I could, for the team. They was right about my passion sometimes over spilling, I needed to do more work on that. Especially after one of my red cards that I had received was for fighting during a match. In my defence, the player did nearly snap my leg in half. Luckily, I wasn't seriously injured but it did put me in the medical room for a few weeks, much to my annoyance, I did also pick up a few match bans so I wouldn't have been playing anyway, but that's beside the point in my eyes.

After my first full season with the first team, when I was 22, I got the call up from England for the senior team, although I had previously said no to the under 20s, I was more than ready by that point so had been part of the England lionesses squad for the last 2 years. I loved going to camp and back home to England. It meant I got to see my family and friends, who I missed so much. But I also got time to build up special friendships with the England team. I had grown close to Beth Mead during the camps, we had a special friendship, I think as we were both from Yorkshire we had that Yorkshire bond. I had built up good friendships with most of the team to be honest, they were all really close when I joined as they all knew each other from the junior setup, which I had missed out on, but they made me feel really welcome right from day 1. I was also really close with both Keira and Lucy, more so when they both moved to Barcelona.

Keira and I played like magic on the pitch, I saw Keira as the best player in the world. We complimented each other really well, her been a defensive midfielder but also a play maker, we linked up really well both for Barcelona and for England. We often spent most of the training sessions working on link ups together and coming up with tactics to break down defences. I spent a lot of time with Keira, even at the England camps which meant I also got to know Leah and Georgia pretty well too. Them three together though where often causing mayhem, playing pranks and fooling around. They had an incredible bond.

As always, at every camp, without fail the conversation would always get brought up about when I would be moving back to England, and to be honest I knew it was only a matter of time.