For some athletes, pressure comes from trying to prove they belong, stepping onto a field and knowing that every performance is another opportunity to show coaches, teammates and supporters that they deserve to be there. For others, pressure arrives in a different way: when the spotlight gets brighter and everyone expects them to succeed.

Last season, London City Lionesses were trying to prove they belonged. This season, they are being asked to prove whether they can win. That is a very different kind of pressure. 

The club entered the 2025-26 season as a newly promoted side, finishing sixth in its first Barclays Women’s Super League campaign. The goal was to establish itself among England’s top teams. Then came the transfer window.

London City spent the summer transforming their squad, bringing in some of the biggest names in women’s football, including two time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas, Spanish international Mapi León, and former England goalkeeper Mary Earps. 

Suddenly, a team that had been trying to find its place in the WSL was being discussed as a potential challenger to the established order.  

When you’re the underdog, there is freedom in having little to lose. A good performance is a statement. A win is a surprise. A mistake can be dismissed as a part of the learning curve. 

But, when everyone expects you to win, that same mistake can feel a lot heavier. 

Their season opener against Manchester United sold out, becoming the biggest home fixture in the club’s history with more than 5,400 supporters inside the CopperJax Community Stadium. London City walked away with a 2-1 win and three points to kick off their season.

The Expectation Shift

Learning to manage expectations becomes a performance skill with experience. The goal isn’t to eliminate pressure, which is an unavoidable part of competing at the highest level. Instead, it is about learning how to acknowledge that pressure without allowing it to pull you away from the things you can actually control.

Ahead of the opener, head coach Eder Maestre didn’t shy away from what his team was walking into. He knew exactly what came with a summer like London City’s. The signings had created excitement like never before.

“All the expectations are on our shoulders,” Maestre said. “All eyes are going to be on this game,”

Instead of treating that attention as something to escape, though, he framed it as part of the challenge. Maestre emphasized that London City had to “feel dominant” and “be strong” if they wanted to reach the targets they had set for themselves. 

That is a significant psychological shift; when the objective is no longer simply to survive but to expect something from yourself. 

Being expected to perform can manifest in multiple ways. There is a difference between carrying that belief with confidence versus feeling as though you are personally responsible for making sure everyone else’s expectations are met. 

Maestre’s pre-match message was built around that expectation. He said that when London City prepares for a match, London City genuinely believe they can win it. 

That kind of belief can be powerful, but belief on its own doesn't create a winning team. With so many talented players arriving at once, his challenge is to turn individual confidence into collective performance.

“All the expectations are on our shoulders. All eyes are going to be on this game. ”

Eder Maestre

Talent is One Thing; Belief is Another

There is an easy assumption that adding world-class players automatically creates a world class team. It doesn’t. 

Putellas has won nearly everything under the sun. Earps has had the most clean sheets in the WSL. Daniëlle van de Donk has spent years winning trophies in France, England and the Netherlands. They all know what winning looks like. 

Still, they need to learn how to win together. That was part of what made van de Donk’s comments before the United game so revealing. 

“You're not going to go into a game to lose,” van de Donk said.

It sounds simple, but that is exactly the mentality London City is trying to build.

The club is no longer approaching the biggest teams hoping to make life difficult for them. Instead, the players enter those games believing they have a legitimate chance of winning. 

That shared mindset within the club could be one of London’s biggest advantages. Expectations become easier to manage when everyone in the room has bought into them. 

Learning to Use Pressure

High expectations come with their own problems. The more talented the squad, the louder the outside conversations become. 

Why didn’t Putellas score? Why didn’t Earps start? Why didn’t Diani create more chances? 

A team with stars doesn’t get the luxury of developing in the shadows. Every result or mistake gets analyzed. That is why Maestre’s emphasis on identity matters. 

His vision isn’t simply to assemble the biggest possible collection of names. The idea is to have a recognizable way of playing, whether that’s aggression without the ball, dominance in possession, the willingness to spend as much time as possible in the opponent’s half, or some combination of all of all three. 

“The identity isn't just that we want to win,” Maestre said. “It's the way we want to win.”

When performance becomes tied entirely to the outcome, a loss can feel like a failure of identity, but when athletes have something deeper to fall back on: this is who we are, this is how we prepare, this is how we want to play—one bad result doesn't have to erase their confidence. There is room to make mistakes and learn.

London City is Growing

Van de Donk has had a front-row seat to the transformation. She joined London City before the latest major wave of investment and has watched the club change rapidly. 

“Every time I drive in, something else has been built,” she said before the opener. “I feel like I'm part of something bigger.”

That feeling was visible on opening night, as a sold-out crowd watched Putellas captain London City for the first time. The team controlled the match and took the lead through Van de Donk’s late-game goal. United scored deep into stoppage time, but London City held on for the win.

The Next Test is Consistency

One win doesn’t suddenly make London City a title contender. Especially not with Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea, all of whom have also made big name signings this transfer window. 

The WSL season is long. There will be poor performances, tactical issues, difficult away days, and nights when the stars don’t shine. That is when the psychological side of this project will really be tested. 

Can the team continue to maintain confidence when expectations turn into criticism or when a match doesn’t go to plan? Those questions will tell us much more about London City that the names on the squad list ever could. 

The biggest change at the club isn’t just that Putellas arrived. It is that the club has moved from a “can we compete?” mentality to a “we should be winning” one. For the London City Lionesses, they’re just getting started.