Ask Jessie Fleming what topics interest her about the environment and she will start reeling them off.
“Urban planning, the power of funghi, regenerative agriculture, Dan Barber…”
Barber is an American chef who advocates for farm-to-table cooking, in case you are not as looped into the environmental ethics of food as Fleming.
The 26-year-old Canada international is speaking after donating the carbon cost of her 2024 season to Zero Foodprint, a community regenerative farming initiative in Portland, in the U.S. Pacific coast state of Oregon, where Fleming plays for Portland Thorns of the NWSL, the top women’s league in the States.
“I started taking courses on environmental science for fun at university and I got down this rabbit hole,” she explains. Fleming ended up minoring in the subject at university in Los Angeles and has been committed to raising awareness about issues with our environment ever since.
This latest pledge comes off the back of her choice to donate the carbon cost of her long-haul flight to the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand as part of a 47-player initiative through Common Goal, a charitable movement launched by Spain international Juan Mata six years ago.
Fleming left Women’s Super League (WSL) champions Chelsea in January, going from a league in England where players travel to games by train or coach to one where they can fly thousands of miles across the country every weekend, such is the geographical spread of the 14 teams.
“It’s something I think about a lot,” she says. “As players, we have a responsibility to draw attention to those problems and suggest ways leagues and governing bodies can adjust the format of tournaments or the schedule of leagues to help reduce those footprints.
“We’re all hypocritical in a way, so we need to at least do something.”
There was a feeling around Fleming’s mid-season departure from Chelsea that she had never quite lived up to her potential. Arriving in summer 2020 fresh out of the U.S. college game at UCLA, her stock was very high, having originally made her senior debut for Canada aged only 15.
Yet she never nailed down a starting spot, despite featuring 111 times across four seasons and being trusted by manager Emma Hayes to start crucial matches such as the 2022-23 Champions League semi-final second leg against Barcelona at Camp Nou.
“Chelsea have so many wonderful players and only 11 spots in the starting line-up,” Fleming reflects. “I just wasn’t a part of that consistently. That’s the reality of football — I don’t have hard feelings about it. I grew so much as a player and a person while I was there and learned so much.
“I loved my time at Chelsea, loved the league, loved England. I just wanted to be in a place where I was consistently playing in the same position and playing more consistent minutes.”
Fleming has certainly got that with Portland, where she has started 13 of their 15 matches so far this season, but the return to the U.S. has been an adjustment. Portland had their worst start to an NWSL season, failing to win any of their first four games and consequently sacking manager Mike Norris. A six-game winning run followed, but with only one victory in the past four league fixtures, it is clear they are still finding their feet as a team.
Those ups and downs are a unique experience for Fleming, who lost only one more league match in three-and-a-half years with Chelsea than she has in six months in Portland.
“It’s definitely a different challenge,” she says. “Physically, it’s more intense (in the NWSL). More transitional, lots of athletic players. But you’re starting to see the effect of European coaches in the league. There are more teams trying to play possession-based, thoughtful football. I’ve never seen anything like how competitive the NWSL is, especially when you look at the teams at the top of the table who had poor seasons last year. That’s not something you would ever see in the WSL.
“The start of the season was especially difficult for us, because we had so many new players. We spent so little time together before the first game — that was a challenge I’d never experienced before. I think we’re feeling the effects of the ebb and flow of the season right now. You have to be so tuned-in mentally for every game, every week. If you do go through a low spell, you have to find ways to turn it around quickly, because getting a few wins will push you up the table.”
Jessie Fleming has had a difficult start to life with Portland Thorns (Soobum Im/Getty Images)
The NWSL season is about to be paused for the Olympics, which begin in France at the end of this month, where Fleming will be hoping to help Canada’s women retain the title they won at the previous Games in Japan three years ago. Paris 2024 will be her third Olympics and Canada have won medals at her previous two, taking bronze in Brazil in 2016, but a disappointing World Cup campaign, where they exited at the group stage after one win and two goals (one of them an own-goal) in the three games, has put a dampener on expectations.
Fleming was Canada’s star at those 2021 Games, dragging them to gold from the penalty spot. She scored four different penalties — in shootouts after the quarter-final and final, in normal time to beat the USWNT in the semis, and another to equalise against Sweden in the final — but she has not always been so calm in those situations.
“I struggled with penalties a bit at university, so it’s definitely not something I’ve always felt able to do,” she says. “I feel like for that coolness, I have to turn to my team-mates and our environment. I feel very supported and backed up with the national team and that helped me massively during that tournament.”
This time out, she’ll be in a new role as captain. Anyone who has watched Fleming play will know she is not the most vocal on the pitch, but she feels she can bring something different to the role.
“I’m definitely on the quieter side, but I’m learning there are so many different ways to lead,” Fleming says. “I don’t love speaking in front of a loud group of people and I feel like I thrive a bit more when I’m one-on-one with players. I would say I’m a bit of a football brain. I love watching the game, I love talking about tactics, and I’m always interested in how to improve, both as an individual and as a team.
“For me, it’s about letting my passion for football shine through and trying to bring others with me in that.”
(Top photo: Omar Vega/Getty Images)
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