I trained with the first team about a month ago, which was such a good experience. It’s crazy when you see them at the Emirates or on the TV, when you know just how talented they are, and then you get the chance to paly with them. <\/p>\n
One of the biggest differences (between academy and senior football) is the pace of the football. Their technical ability is so high that they’re able to move the ball around so quickly. If you lose focus for a second, the ball’s on the other side of the pitch. I was up against Mariona Caldentey in training too, so that wasn’t easy!<\/p>\n
All these experiences show me how close I am if I keep working hard. I’ve played with Viv Lia, Sophie Harwood, Cecily Wellesley-Smith and Jessie Gale, who have gone on to sign professional contracts with Arsenal and get loan deals to help them develop. <\/p>\n
When you see their qualities and how they’ve progressed, it’s inspiring. I’m also close with Niamh Peacock, who’s on loan with Portsmouth at the moment, so we keep in contact while she’s away. <\/p>\n
\n“When you see their qualities and how they’ve progressed, it’s inspiring.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Now I’m in my fourth year here, I’ve built some amazing friendships that are so important to have off the field. Sometimes it can be hard, because friends outside of football don’t really understand why you can’t come out at the weekend, whereas friends at Arsenal are in the same boat. <\/p>\n
I see my friends from home as often as I can, so it’s lovely to have both. <\/p>\n
It’s hard to balance academy football and school, especially while I’m working towards my A-Levels in theology, PE and business. There’s pressure to study all the time, alongside training and matches, but I’m coping. <\/p>\n
\n \n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n Away from Arsenal, I play for the Republic of Ireland youth teams and we’ve qualified for Round 2 of the Under-19 Euros, which was great. I don’t think you can compare any international games to our academy games because each country has its own unique playing style. <\/p>\n
Some of the players you’re up against are the best in their country, so it’s not only about understanding a variety of football, but also a huge technical challenge. <\/p>\n
My aims for the future are to keep working hard, sign my first professional contract and hopefully reach a point where I’m playing the best level of senior football I can, whether that’s in the WSL or WSL2. <\/p>\n
\n \n \n\n\n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n
Young Gun: Sophie Harwood <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\nCopyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our Young Gun series gets to know the academy youngsters kicking off their careers at the Sobha Realty Training Centre. Sophia Leonard spoke to us recently about making the step … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}