Manchester City’s Kerstin Casparij: ‘I love football – but it takes over your life’

Dutch full-back on relief of winning the Double and needing a ‘sense of normality’ while in the spotlight

Kerstin Casparij loves football, especially Champions League nights under the lights, but perspective is important too. “I would say football is my most important secondary thing in life, and I’ve found that such a refreshing way of looking at it,” she says before Manchester City’s trip to Milan to face Inter on Tuesday.

“It is so important to me and I love it so much and if I lose I’m going to have a terrible day, but my family’s healthy, my friends are healthy, I am, and I don’t have to worry about anything; I don’t have to worry about getting the food on the table. Being able to see things from that perspective makes it so much easier to stay the person I’ve always been.”

The 26-year-old Dutch full-back has had a phenomenal year, winning a first league title and FA Cup with Manchester City in her fourth season in England. Casparij was integral, having arguably her best season in the Women’s Super League, scoring three times and providing seven assists – the joint-most assists in the league with Aston Villa’s Lynn Wilms.

Key to her growth last season under Andrée Jeglertz was that “now I’m allowed to really play on almost the whole right side”, she says. “And I’m allowed to and trusted with pushing forward and taking risks in the final third.”

Like all team players, Casparij credits her teammates, but her contribution was recognised with a place on the Ballon d’Or shortlist. She finished in 24th place, the fifth-highest defender.

Being able to share these wins with her team outside the team is important too. They “work tirelessly to help me out”, she says. “Especially my partner, who is so invested in my career and has been such an incredible support and helped me out in more ways than I can count. There are so many incredible people around me and I’m just really happy I can give back to them as well, as much as I’m proud of myself for achieving it.”

Casparij’s authenticity, openness and playfulness have made her a fan favourite, not only at City but across the league. Her pun-loaded Instagram captions are as witty and self-critical after a defeat as they are sharp when City win. She is funny, shows fire on the pitch and is not afraid of banter with rivals, and is also a passionate advocate for the causes that matter to her, including as an LGBT Foundation patron and by sharing her experiences growing up with ADHD. Social media is a key tool for connecting.

“I always want to be me and I want people that I knew 10 years ago to now speak to me and be able to be like: ‘Oh you haven’t changed a single bit, you’re still the same person.’ I have a lot of friends outside of football and it gives you such a sense of normality because football, the industry, is not normal and we are not necessarily normal.”

The connection with people matters because it cuts through the abnormality. “We’re in the spotlight every three days at times. We’re getting judged on our performance, we’re getting judged on how we do our work, so I kind of need that sense of normality to make sure I don’t take things too seriously and really keep both my feet on the ground.”

Having a partner who isn’t fazed by what comes with being a professional football player and understands the schedule and lifestyle is a big part of that. “I absolutely love football, I love everything about it, but it takes over your life and it’s definitely taken over ours,” she says. “You need a partner that understands that and loves it and is like: ‘Yeah, let’s do this together.’

“I’m so grateful for her and am so appreciative of her. She’s got weekends off but she doesn’t really have weekends off because they all revolve around me. Life revolves around me a lot and I try to make extra effort to make sure she knows it’s about her, too. We’re definitely a two-person team here, but to have her support and know she’s always there, she’s a massive part of my football journey.”

That journey has taken her a long way from Heerenveen, for whom she made her debut at 15. Almost two years ago, when Casparij signed a new long-term City contract, she told the Guardian she felt she had unfinished business at the club. She wanted to win, so what did securing the Double in May feel like? “Incredible. It was such a long time coming and I’d been dreaming of that for so long.

“There was a big feeling of relief. We were very determined to win the league and I feel like we remained very calm for very, very long, pretty much up until the end. We just knew what we needed to do to get the job done and we made a big point of having a winning language. As a leadership team we started to talk about ‘when’ we win the league rather than ‘if’ to create an environment that believed and where everyone was going to do everything we could to win.”

Whether City can retain their title is the big question. They did not play in the Champions League last season and there were questions before this campaign over whether they could juggle the workload. After nine games they are top and unbeaten, two points clear of Chelsea, who drew 1-1 with Everton at the weekend, before their meeting on Saturday at Stamford Bridge. City look as formidable as ever in attack but earned only their second clean sheet in their 5-0 defeat of West Ham on Saturday. In the Champions League, they have three draws from three games as they get reacquainted with the demands of European competition.

Were they aware of the doubts some had in pre-season? “Late last season some were still thinking we were going to bottle it,” Casparij says with a smile. “We see it. I’m not going to say we don’t, because we all follow the media, we all have social media, but it’s not something that gets really discussed very heavily. But it definitely adds fuel to our fire …

“It also allows us, as a team, to keep innovating, to keep thinking: ‘OK, what can we change? What can we improve? Where can we get better? Where do we sometimes need to tweak little things? What does the opponent do?’ And that’s the beauty of it and the fun part because it never gets boring.”