England-born, but Ellis is now plotting end of nation’s dream
US coach already had passion for football on leaving Britain aged 15, reports Luke Edwards
The United States had just beaten France to set up a semi-final meeting with England when Jill Ellis was asked how she felt about facing her home nation in a World Cup semi-final. The question did not go down well.
“I’ve got US citizenship, brother,” came the rather terse reply, hands clenched in front of her, the words delivered with a firm head nod, fully aware she needed to quash any suggestion, in front of the American media, that she might have divided loyalties in Lyon tomorrow.
It was a theme revisited two days
later, although Ellis was more prepared. She may have denied it in Paris, but Ellis did not wish to do so again. She was born British, but is very much an American. She can be proud of her heritage, as well as her nationality.
This time it was her captain, Alex Morgan, sitting beside her, who interrupted her manager before she could speak. “She is 100 per cent American…” The Americans in the room laughed, but Ellis did not want to go down that route again.
Even if she had tried, her accent would have betrayed her. It is a fascinating blend, a soft Virginian drawl, punctuated by the occasionally crisp English intonation. It is a strangely unique transatlantic sound, the result of a childhood spent on the south coast of England, in a small village, Cowplain, just outside Portsmouth, and an adult life in the US.
Ellis was 15 when her family moved to America. She is now 52. Her formative years were spent in England, but if she had not left, her life would have taken a very different path.
When she got to the US, after her father John, a former Royal Marine, moved to set up a soccer academy, she already loved the game, but had been effectively prevented from playing because of the social stigma attached to girls joining in. In America, she was, in a football sense, reborn.
“I’m an American except when I’m in the supermarket or at the candy store,” said Ellis, who has risen through the US coaching system, taking the national team job in 2014, winning the World Cup in Canada a year later.
“I grew up playing with boys in the schoolyard and my brother in the backyard. I had zero opportunity to play over here [in
‘I never thought I would end up a coach in football ...that wasn’t the plan’