Rachel Daly is motivated by the thought of making her late father proud as she looks to win her 50th England cap when she returns to Leeds with the Lionesses on Friday.
The versatile 30-year-old, currently captain of the Houston Dash in the United States, played for Leeds early in her career and supports the club.
Her passion for the Yorkshire outfit was something she shared with her father Martyn, who died last September.
On Friday, England go to Elland Road to take on the Netherlands in the second of three warm-up matches ahead of next month’s home Euros.
And Harrogate-born Daly said: “I have never actually played at Elland Road, which is weird because I played at Leeds for a long time and I’m a die-hard fan.
“It is really exciting. Obviously my family will be there, just with one person missing.
“For me it will be an exciting moment, but it is like that whenever England play a game. You can’t treat it any differently – but there is a little special touch that it is at Elland Road.
“Touch wood I make an appearance and I can get that 50th cap.
“My dad was a die-hard Leeds fan and he was the person who made me the biggest Leeds fan so it will be hard for me that he is not there.
“But ultimately he will have the best seat in the house and if I can make him proud, then that is all that matters to me.”
Daly has a tattoo featuring lyrics from the Leeds anthem ‘Marching On Together’.
And she said: “It says, ‘at least until the world stops going round’. It is obviously part of ‘Marching On Together’ and the song was played at my dad’s funeral and it is the mantra that me and my brother have adopted.“It is pretty self-explanatory, ‘we will stay with you forever, at least until the world stops going round’. So, yeah, it is a little more special touch.”
England’s 10-0 World Cup qualifying win in Luxembourg last September, just a few days on from her father’s death, saw Daly get one of the goals – after she scored and was embraced by her team-mates, she kissed a band on her wrist displaying the word ‘Dad’ and pointed to the sky.
Daly, who can play at full-back or as a forward, was also on the scoresheet last week when the Lionesses beat Belgium 3-0 at Molineux in their first Euros warm-up fixture.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here