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Within 24 hours of telling a mutual friend that I’d like to interview Jess Fishlock, we were on the phone.

It was well before deadline that I'd asked whether she'd be up for an interview because more often than not, it can take a while to coordinate diaries or get permission for access.

But the next night, sat at my dining table, I dialled a Seattle number and Jess Fishlock answered.

She’d already told me by email she was “beyond proud” to have won top spot on WalesOnline's Pinc List and was gutted not to be able to attend Pride this weekend, but desperate for her mum and sister to attend in her place.

Humility is not a word commonly associated with world-leading professional sports stars. But it shines through Fishlock's distinctive lilt that blends the US West Coast with her roots in Cardiff.

Seattle - and professionally speaking, Reign FC - has been home for Fishlock since the team become one of the US National Women's Soccer League's eight founder members in 2013.

She's been there ever since, apart from loan moves that have taken her Melbourne, Lyon - where she won a Champions League winners medal - Frankfurt and Glasgow in pursuit of games and coaching experience during the NWSL's off-season.

(Image: Getty Images)

She'd previously spent a season on the books of Melbourne Victory, as well as two years in the Netherlands playing for AZ Alkmaar, where she became the first overseas player to appear in the top flight Eredivisie.

Just 21 at the time, she'd already experienced five years of first team football, having made her debut for Cardiff City at the age of just 16.

Along the way, she's won more than 100 caps for Wales, fastidiously flying on from whichever part of the globe her profession had taken her to play a key role in the team's transformation into bona fide World Cup qualification contenders.

To put it simply, football is life for Jess Fishlock. But more than a job, it's also been a life-saver.

In her own words, her school days in the Welsh capital were "hell on earth" as she came to terms with her sexuality. And it was there that football came in.

"I don’t know if I would be here right now if I didn’t have it,” she’s admitted in the past, describing how her three weekly trips to football were what she needed to “survive”.

Fast forward to the age of 32, and she’s now Wales’ most capped player, a Champions League winner, and a role model.

This year, she topped WalesOnline and Pride Cymru’s Pinc List.

The panel’s decision was unanimous, not just because of her skills on the field, but her determination her time on – and off – the pitch to help others, never shirking the opportunity to talk with searing honesty about her experiences.

The game she loves has changed plenty since she was a young player, but there is still plenty holding women back.

Equality is still something she, and her teammates in Seattle and Wales are fighting for. At Reign FC, her teammates include Megan Rapinoe, the breakout star of the US team's recent World Cup triumph, who earned headlines round the world thanks to her sensational performances on the pitch, and her outspoken views about - among other things - Donald Trump, off it.

Rapinoe became embroiled in a spat with the President after she said she'd refuse to go to the White House if her team won.

The President responded by saying she "should win first before she talks". Rapinoe responded by being named player of the tournament as her team swept to the title, scoring the opening goal in a 2-0 win over the Netherlands.

Speaking after the victory, Rapinoe sent a live message to Trump during a live interview on CNN.

“Your message is excluding people," she said.

"You’re excluding me, you’re excluding people that look like me, you’re excluding people of colour, you’re excluding Americans that maybe support you.”

It's a level of activism that would strike a chord with Fishlock.

"It was just amazing," she says.

I have been here for seven years and I play alongside some of the team who were playing.

"I do have this affiliation with them and respect for them. I am thrilled that they won it.

"I said all along that they would. I think they’re just so much stronger than any other team, physically and mentally.

"The beautiful thing about this national team is that all the women use their platform in such positive ways.

"They do the right thing and make such a stance.

"For me, that was another reason for them to win. I knew that if they were able to win, what they would be able to achieve would be far bigger than any of the other nations.

"After so long, the tide is turning. We still have a really long way to go but I think there are definitely strides being made.

"We have to keep making the right decisions.

"There are a lot more people who, even if they aren’t gay themselves, have an allegiance with the community and are allies.

"In the past, it just wasn’t like that, it was ‘this is your world’ and ‘this is mine and they don’t combine’.

"But I think we don’t see that as much because people the people who are growing up now are making good decisions and the youngsters coming through that now...they’re safe.

"That’s always been the most important thing for me - how can we let them find themselves in a safe environment. And I think we’re starting to make real strides."

In January, Fishlock shared an image of her proudly holding her number 10 shirt for the national team. The number was nothing new. The name printed above it, though, was far more significant.

To her left, the shirts read Ingle and Ward, to her right, Harding, James and Dykes.

"What a moment," her caption read.

"To many this step for us is a step they probably don’t understand. But for us - a long 12 years of fighting and we finally have our names on our shirt."

Finally, she and the other women who represent their country had their names printed on their backs. It's a small, but significant step on the journey to parity with their male counterparts.

Just this week, the Wales team manager Jayne Ludlow spoke of the difficulties of having to balance her duties with the senior team with her overall responsibilities for the development of all age groups of the women's game in Wales.

Fishlock is frustrated but honest about the pressure of being a professional sportswoman and the differences with the men’s game.

It took until 2018 for all of the players in the top tier of women’s football in England to be paid full-time, making it the only fully professional women’s league in Europe.

In total, Fifa awarded £24m to the competing teams in the women’s tournament. In the men’s tournament the year before it was more than 10 times as much.

"Women’s football now is very different to when I first started, but in some ways, it’s still the same.”

Finance remains a key thing. A crucial part of a sustainable career is the ability to hop between leagues, if the transfer windows allow.

(Image: Getty Images) (Image: PA)

Jess is a Reign player FC, but last season, she won that precious Champions League medal with Lyon.

Then, just a few weeks after experiencing the highs of victory, an operation on a ruptured ACL ruled her out for six months.

Within days of her surgery in July, she was beginning the recovery process and expected to be running within three months.

"Then it’s a case of getting back for the qualifiers with Wales.”

Now, Jess is off her crutches and back in the gym.

Whether Fishlock expected to become a role model as a young girl in Cardiff, she’s become one.

And she’s fiercely proud of being one.

When she recently offered one of her Reign FC Pride shirts in a competition, the response was overwhelming.

“The number of people who did that, in a positive way, it got people from France, Australia, the UK, America; people from all over the world, which I just did not think I would ever see a few years ago."

Last year, she was at Buckingham Palace to receive an MBE for services to women’s sport and the LGBT+ community.

"When I got the message and it explained the two reasons were women’s football and services to the LGBTQ community, it was just so special.

"When your personal story comes into it, it really does just feel a bit more special.

"It means that everyone is talking about why you got it, and that means they have to talk about LGBTQ - everyone you’re speaking to, and that reach is suddenly massive.

"It’s all about more visibility."

(Image: PA)

Getting her MBE was a chance to share it with her family and friends, those who have "moulded" her.

But as she becomes more and more well-known, does the role model label ever worry her?

"It’s never a burden because I think the message is too big and it affects way too many people for me to even begin to think that it’s a burden.

"I am only human and sometimes I make mistakes and do normal things.

"What the USA team have shown is that they have a platform that they can make changes.

"If you don’t use it then I feel you’re letting everyone down.

"I don’t want to be that person.

"I am very lucky to have a platform and I want to use it for positive things, to make changes.”

Jess is currently working on her autobiography with academic and former Wales footballer Laura McAllister.

"It’s going to cover everything,” she laughed, “Things that haven’t come out before”.

"It’s been really hard to do in terms of letting everything out but I think it when it happens, it will be a one off”.

Despite everywhere she’s been and everything she’s seen, Jess is still a Cardiff girl.

"There ain’t no place like home," she laughed.

"I can’t wait to come back later in the summer. It’ll be the longest I’ve been home for and not doing anything so I am so excited. I’m really looking forward to coming home and being back in Cardiff," she said.