“Sometimes you have to speak out”: Lia Wälti on growth | OneFootball

Anne Butzelaar, Women's Football Editor

Lia Wälti says she has had to rediscover herself after leaving Arsenal, with the Brighton midfielder opening up on her time at Juventus, the responsibility she feels to push women’s football forward and why she is enjoying the game again.

After seven years at Arsenal, Wälti’s move away from North London represented far more than simply changing clubs.

For so long, her identity as a player had become intertwined with Arsenal and English football. It was only after leaving, she admitted, that she realised quite how deeply rooted she had become in that environment.

“Yes, 100%,” Wälti said when asked whether she had needed to rediscover herself after leaving Arsenal.

“I think you don’t maybe realise during the time you’re playing for one club for so long how much you become part of it, but also how much you rely on everything there. So I guess that’s something I for sure underestimated a little bit, moving away from Arsenal towards a different league, a different culture, different club.”

It was, however, a challenge Wälti had actively wanted.

“I wanted to see, where can I go? What am I able to do when things are changing, when the environment is changing?”

Her season in Italy with Juventus gave her that opportunity. Wälti is clear that she remains grateful for the experience and what she learned, but equally honest that the fit ultimately was not right.

“I think sometimes in life things match, and sometimes they don’t,” she said. “I had a really good time at Juventus. I learned a lot, but it wasn’t a match, and I’m really happy now to be at a club where I feel like it can match again, or it does match again.”

Brighton has already provided a different feeling.

“We had really good first weeks. I’m really happy where I am, but every change needs time.”

That willingness to discuss her experience in Italy has already generated debate.

In a recent BBC interview, Wälti spoke openly about areas where she felt the women’s game in Italy could improve, while repeatedly stressing that her comments were not intended as criticism of Juventus or Italian football.

Speaking again ahead of Brighton’s meeting with Aston Villa, the Switzerland captain explained why she felt honesty was necessary even when it risked creating uncomfortable conversations.

“It is difficult,” she admitted. “I was recently listening to a podcast of André Schürrle. He said, in football, it’s really hard to be honest, because if you’re honest, things can be turned around.”

For Wälti, the balance lies between gratitude and a responsibility to improve the game.

“I think it’s important to always have respect and also be thankful for the opportunity you get as a player, and I’m 100% thankful for the time I had at Juventus. And at the same time, it’s the same for me being a Swiss captain and a leader in Switzerland. I want to push the game forward, and I want to help the next generations to have better conditions than us.”

That can sometimes mean saying things others would rather leave unsaid.

“Sometimes you have to speak out,” Wälti said. “Either you hide and you don’t do it, or you speak out and you hope that it helps to do changes. But of course, when you speak out loud, it also gives some negative voices around it. That is normal.”

Her motivation, she insists, has never been to hurt those she worked alongside.

“I didn’t want anyone to be hurt by what I said,” she explained. “I think my meaning behind what I say is always to improve football, women’s football, for the next generations. That was all behind the story, basically.”

Now back in England, Wälti is experiencing another significant transition.

Brighton are only weeks into life under their new head coach and are attempting to implement an entirely new tactical philosophy without the benefit of a full preseason.

Wälti believes there have already been signs of progress.

“I think we’re in the middle of an extreme change of process,” she said. “There are, of course, things which click, and there are other things where we for sure need to improve our game. I think you could see a little bit more what we want in terms of being more direct towards the opponent’s goal. But at the same time, we left potentially a little bit too much space behind us, which made us a little bit vulnerable.”

It means patience remains essential.

“To learn and get taught a new philosophy just takes a little bit of time,” Wälti said. “Patience is hard in football because you’ve got a game every weekend. You want to perform, get the result. But at the same time, we need to look at it as a whole picture. And I think in that way, we’ve had a good improvement over the last two weeks.”

Brighton’s 2-2 draw with Birmingham offered an example of both sides of that development.

After falling two goals behind, they fought back and scored with virtually the final action of the match to rescue a point.

For Wälti, the result demonstrated the character already forming within the squad.

“It was huge for us,” she said. “To come back from 2-0 to 2-2 is really important mentally. We wanted to win that game. We weren’t happy with the draw, but at the same time, if you score in the last action of the game, it’s something you have to be happy about.”

More important was Brighton’s refusal to allow the game to drift away.

“We didn’t give up,” Wälti said. “We pushed till the end. We wanted that goal so bad, and I think it’s a positive result for us in the end. It’s a positive character of the team, which we showed.”

But Wälti does not want a comeback draw to lower Brighton’s ambitions.

“We want to have more,” she said. “We want to have the expectations to be able to get three points in Birmingham and also at home when we now play Aston Villa, so we will push for that.”

Once again, however, she returned to the reality of Brighton’s current position.

“It’s a process. It’s a new philosophy, a new coach. We’re all learning every single day, and we hope that we can improve from week to week.”

That learning process has also brought a renewed enjoyment for Wälti personally.

She previously spoke about wanting to return to an environment where she felt valued, though she believes those comments have sometimes been interpreted differently from how she intended them.

“I think it has been a bit misunderstood,” Wälti said. “I feel valued. I felt like during my career, the value of being a women’s footballer was increasing year by year. When I look back to my first steps in professional football, maybe when you compare it to now, then we weren’t as valued as now.”

The WSL, she believes, represents how far that progress has come.

“I do feel like in the WSL, women’s football is extremely appreciated, supported, and it’s just great to face such good opponents as well, where you have every weekend a big challenge ahead of you. To work with individual coaches, individual good players. It’s fun, and I’m excited to go on the pitch every day. I think it’s all about having fun, and that’s for sure back.”

That sense of enjoyment does not mean Brighton’s work has become any less demanding.

“I think, of course, there are always moments, like right now, you have to focus a lot because you get taught a complete new tactical job for everyone, and as a team as well,” she explained. “It needs a lot of focus from all of us. But at the same time, there is always space for fun. It needs to have space for it because what’s the point about what we’re doing if we don’t enjoy?”

Wälti has also settled quickly into a Brighton midfield offering a wide range of profiles.

She believes the contrast between experience and youth can become one of their strengths.

“You always need a bit of everything,” she said. “When you look at all of our midfielders, the type of players we are, we are all bringing something different to the team. There are different games, so they require different qualities, and I think some people can help with their experience, and others can potentially help more with their bravery and with just not thinking too much, but just playing their game, being intense.”

Competition has already helped raise standards.

“We all bring in our own qualities, which help the team,” Wälti added. “It’s fun so far because we challenge each other in each individual training, and I think we’ve got loads of good midfielders to play.”

Brighton now turn their attention to Aston Villa, whose opening fixtures have included difficult encounters with Chelsea and Manchester City.

Wälti believes that makes their next opponent slightly harder to predict.

“They had a really tough start in terms of their opponents,” she said. “It’s a bit hard to know what we’re going to expect from them, because they could potentially change quite a lot when they play Brighton compared to when they maybe play against a Man City or a Chelsea.”

Brighton, though, intend to focus on their own improvements.

“Of course, we see our chances,” Wälti said. “We have our qualities, and we want to make sure that we fix the things we didn’t do well against Birmingham, and at the same time also respect the strengths of Aston Villa. Then hopefully be strong enough, with the fans in our back, to push for our first win of the season.”

For Wälti, those supporters will be central to Brighton’s longer-term ambitions as well.

Having spent seven years at Arsenal, she knows what a large and established fanbase can bring, but believes Brighton must develop their own connection rather than attempt to copy another club.

“In the end, you need to build connections with your fans,” she said. “I think we have a strategy here at the club, how we want to do that over the next couple of years and how we want to improve that. You can’t compare with other clubs because the setup is different everywhere.”

Instead, Brighton must build something rooted in their own community.

“We have to work here with Brighton and the area around here and connect with the fans more and more,” Wälti said. “Hopefully, with us being successful on the pitch and creating something which can inspire not just kids, but in general people, it for sure will support that. It’s a process. It needs time. And at the same time, I know the club is willing to invest a lot into exactly building that connection with them.”

It is a word Wälti returns to repeatedly: time.

Time to adjust after seven years at Arsenal. Time to understand what worked and what did not in Italy. Time to settle at Brighton. And time for a team undergoing significant tactical change to become what it wants to be.

But perhaps the clearest indication of where Wälti finds herself now came in a far simpler admission.

She is excited to go to training again.

And, in her own words, “the fun is for sure back.”