The pioneering Chelsea scheme that helped England’s Lionesses win Euro 2025 | OneFootball

Niamh Charles does not remember much about taking the third spot-kick in England’s dramatic Euro 2025 penalty shootout victory over Spain this summer, and that is perhaps unsurprising.

The mind can play tricks in challenging circumstances, and circumstances don’t come much trickier than trying to convert from 12 yards with the hopes of a nation on your shoulders, especially when your experience of shootouts runs no further than hitting the woodwork as a youth player.

But those weren’t the only challenges the Chelsea left-back faced that day.

‘It was an unbelievable day’

“I came on my period the day of the Euro final, that morning,” said Charles, who went on to convert her spot-kick with aplomb. “Especially day one, sometimes it can be a lot, and my day one was actually the Euro final, so it was an unbelievable day.

“Now when I come on my period it’s like, ‘OK, I can be proud of being a woman, being on my period and also [being able to] go out and perform.’”

As the 26-year-old acknowledged in an interview with Glamour, she is fortunate to have come through a system at Chelsea where individual training plans are tailored to each player’s menstrual cycle.

The approach, designed to improve performance and mitigate injury risk, was introduced under former manager Emma Hayes, who felt too little attention had previously been paid to the effects of the menstrual cycle on female athletes.

‘As an athlete, you have a lot of things you need to think about’

“I am a female coach in an industry where women have always been treated like small men,” Hayes said of her decision to adapt training sessions to players’ cycles. “The application of anything from rehab to strength and conditioning to tactical all come from the basis of what men do.

“The starting point is that we are women and, ultimately, we go through something very different to men on a monthly basis. And we have to have a better understanding of that because our education failed us at school; we didn’t get taught about our reproduction systems.

“It comes from a place of wanting to know more about ourselves and understanding how we can improve our performance.”

For Charles – who spoke about her Euros experience as part of a sponsor-backed Chelsea initiative entitled: “We Don’t Bleed Blue. We Bleed. Period” – the approach has been a revelation.

“I joined Chelsea when I was 21, and since then I realise how much Chelsea have been at the forefront in terms of really putting an emphasis on the menstrual cycle,” she said. “Not just when you bleed, the whole tracking of it.

“As an athlete, you have a lot of things you need to think about. It’s just one thing that can be taken care of, and I really notice the difference.”

Chelsea face Manchester City in their WSL season opener on Friday evening.