Vaila Marie Barsley (born 15 September 1987) is a Scottish

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

defender who plays for Swedish

Damallsvenskan The Damallsvenskan, Swedish for ''ladies all-Swedish'' and also known as OBOS Damallsvenskan for sponsorship reasons, is the highest division of women's football in Sweden. It is also referred to as the women's Allsvenskan. The term Allsvenskan ...

club

IF Brommapojkarna Idrottsföreningen Brommapojkarna, more commonly known as Brommapojkarna (meaning ''the Bromma boys'') or simply BP, is a Swedish football club located in the borough of Bromma, in the western parts of Stockholm municipality. Brommapojkarna is t ...

Club career

Barsley played

college soccer College soccer is played by teams composed of soccer players who are enrolled in colleges and universities. It is very prominent in United States, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and as well as in South Africa and the Philippines. The United Kingd ...

for

St. John's Red Storm The St. John's Red Storm is the nickname used for the 17 varsity athletic programs of St. John's University, in the U.S. state of New York. St. John's 17 NCAA Division I teams compete in the Big East Conference, with the exception of the fenci ...

while attending

St. John's University St John's University may refer to: *St. John's University (New York City) **St. John's University School of Law **St. John's University (Italy) - Overseas Campus *College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University, St. Joseph, Minnesota and Col ...

on a five-year accountancy degree. After graduating she began working for

Ernst & Young Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewaterh ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, but negotiated a leave of absence when Swedish club

Eskilstuna United Eskilstuna United DFF is a Association football, football club from Eskilstuna, in Södermanland County, Sweden. The club was established in 2002 and was promoted into the Women's Premier Division (Damallsvenskan) for the first time in 2014. The ...

offered her a

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skil ...

soccer contract in 2013. Barsley's nine goals from defence helped Eskilstuna win

promotion Promotion may refer to: Marketing * Promotion (marketing), one of the four marketing mix elements, comprising any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or i ...

to the

in her first season. In the

2015 Damallsvenskan 2015 Damallsvenskan was the 27th season of the Swedish women's association football top division, Damallsvenskan. It was played between 11 April 2015 and 18 October 2015. FC Rosengård were the defending champions, having won the competition in 201 ...

season, Eskilstuna finished runners-up to

FC Rosengård FC Rosengård, formerly Malmö FF Dam (1970–2007) and LdB FC Malmö (2007–2013), is a professional football club based in Malmö, Scania, Sweden. The team was established as Malmö FF Dam in 1970. It started out with playing 7 seasons in th ...

and Barsley was awarded a new two-year contract. In March 2022 she transferred to Damallsvenskan newcomers

, following nine seasons with Eskilstuna.

International career

Barsley's mother is from

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

, which qualifies her to play for

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. She made her full international debut on 11 April 2017, in a 5–0 defeat against

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

Personal life

In December 2018 she

married Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between t ...

her former Eskilstuna team-mate

Annica Svensson Annica Birgitta Teres Svensson (born 3 March 1983) is a Swedish former football defender who last played in Sweden for Eskilstuna United DFF. She previously played for Tyresö FF, and spent the second half of the 2013 season on loan at Vittsj� ...

Honours

;Eskilstuna United DFF Runner-up *

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

References

External links

* * *
Profile
at

Profile
at Connect World Football 1987 births Living people English women's footballers English expatriate women's footballers Peamount United F.C. players Arsenal W.F.C. players Eskilstuna United DFF players Damallsvenskan players Expatriate women's footballers in Sweden Vaila Barsley Women's association football defenders USL W-League (1995–2015) players St. John's Red Storm women's soccer players Expatriate women's soccer players in the United States English people of Scottish descent Scottish women's footballers Scotland women's international footballers Vaila Barsley Vaila Barsley Lesbian sportswomen LGBT association football players Scottish LGBT sportspeople Scottish lesbians England women's youth international footballers IF Brommapojkarna (women) players Scottish expatriate women's footballers UEFA Women's Euro 2017 players Long Island Rough Riders (USL W League) players Expatriate women's association footballers in the Republic of Ireland {{Scotland-footy-defender-1980s-stub