Class of 2026: BWSL breakthrough stars of this season
Something is happening in the Barclays Women's Super League this season that feels different from the usual rhythm of young players getting their chance. It is not that the league has suddenly discovered youth; the BWSL has always produced talented young players, moved them around on loan, and brought them through carefully managed pathways designed to protect and develop.
What is different in the current campaign is the volume of young players breaking through and the trust managers place in them. These are not cameo appearances or carefully rationed substitute minutes; we are seeing young players, often academy graduates, starting week after week in a title race, in European competition, in games that matter enormously, and looking entirely at home.
The women's game in England has reached a point where this is no longer a surprise, but it is still worth marking. The infrastructure that produces these players from the academies, the loan networks, and the emergence of the BWSL 2 as a development environment has been built slowly and imperfectly over many years.
What this season suggests is that it is beginning to work. Not just at the top clubs with the resources to absorb a young player's mistakes, but across the division, we have over 40 players aged 23 and under being trusted with real responsibility because they have genuinely earned it.
In this piece, we will highlight some of the players enjoying breakout seasons in the Barclays Women's Super League, cementing themselves as regular starters, and explain why they are worth watching in the future.
Veerle Buurman
Chelsea | Centre-Back | Age 19
When Sonia Bompastor integrated Veerle Buurman into Chelsea's starting defence this season, she was doing so from a position of relative necessity. Lucy Bronze has been repeatedly deployed out of position at centre-back due to injury absences; Naomi Girma and Millie Bright's minutes are being carefully managed, but Buurman has made the conversation about necessity irrelevant.
The 19-year-old Dutch defender, signed from PSV, has been one of Chelsea's most assured performers in a season that has, by the club's high standards, stuttered. She has made seven WSL appearances this season and a further three in the Champions League, accumulating over 500 league minutes so far and clearly growing with confidence.
As a left-footed centre-back, she offers the ability to comfortably play on the left side of a back three or within a back four. Having developed in Dutch football, Buurman is comfortable on the ball and can step out to play passes forward, combining her defensive robustness with a progressive quality that suits Bompastor's build-up preferences.
It’s clear how much the Chelsea hierarchy believes in Buurman’s talent. In the recent Subway Women’s League Cup final, with Bright and Girma out injured, it was the 19-year-old who Bompastor turned to.
The young defender repaid her manager’s faith with an exemplary performance against a tough Manchester United side. Buurman didn’t put a foot wrong all game; she was composed in her defensive actions, read the game well, and demonstrated why she deserves to retain her place, even when Bright and Girma return from injury.
On the international stage, she has also made her mark, representing the Netherlands at Under-17, Under-19, and Under-20, and making her senior debut in 2024.
It’s hard to believe Buurman is only 19, given the level of performance she puts in. One thing is for certain: she has the talent to go all the way to the top, and Chelsea appears to be just the right place for her to develop.
Lucia Kendall
Aston Villa | Midfielder | Age 21
There’s a version of the breakthrough story we all know - the academy prodigy, plucked from development football and fast-tracked into the first team by necessity or vision, the debut goal at a major club.
However, Lucia Kendall's story is the other kind; her rise has been quieter, but what she’s done this season in her first-ever BWSL campaign at 21 years of age, having never played at this level before, is all the more worth paying attention to.
The midfielder spent over a decade at Southampton, making over 100 appearances for the club and playing regular senior football from the age of 16. At the age of 18, she was regularly featuring in the BWSL 2, gaining a wealth of experience week in, week out against seasoned professionals.
This is the type of development that many top-tier managers seek when sending young players out on loan. Kendall got it organically, at a club that needed her rather than one simply accommodating her development. She arrived at Villa Park in July on a free transfer, following the expiry of her Southampton contract, and stepped straight into a BWSL season without blinking.
Kendall has made 13 league appearances in her debut top-flight campaign with a Villa team that has struggled to convert their underlying quality into results. The midfielder has been one of the more consistent performers, though.
As a result, her performances caught the eye of Sarina Wiegman, and when the international call-up came, it felt simultaneously sudden and inevitable.
Kendall received her first senior England call-up in October 2025 as part of the 'Homecoming' series, made her full senior debut against Australia, was named Player of the Match in a 3-0 win, and then scored her first England goal in December in a 2-0 friendly victory over Ghana, some introduction to international football.
There’s an argument to say that the Villa midfielder has had the best possible education in that she’s played in a competitive environment right from a young age, courtesy of Southampton. If her performances continue, there is no reason why she wouldn’t be on the plane to Brazil should England qualify for the World Cup next year.
Freya Godfrey
London City Lionesses | Forward | Age 20
London City Lionesses' debut BWSL season has been exactly what you would expect from a newly promoted club navigating the top flight for the first time: scrappy, occasionally chaotic, and often defined more by spirit than structure.
Within that, though, Freya Godfrey has been one of the more consistent attacking threats and is showing that she belongs at this level despite her young age. Godfrey has made 13 league appearances this season, scoring four league goals and providing three assists - making her mark on the English top flight.
Godfrey joined Arsenal's academy at the age of 12, made just two senior appearances for the club during her time there, and spent her development years at Ipswich, Charlton, and on loan at London City Lionesses in the second half of last season before making the move permanent in July.
She opened her account for the season with a brace in a 4-2 win over Tottenham in November. This was a real statement performance from a player who had been quietly building to exactly this moment. She is direct, willing to run in behind, sharp in the moments that count, often thinking two steps ahead of her opponent and occasionally her teammates. What also makes Godfrey stand out is her versatility; she is comfortable playing across the front line rather than locked into a single position.
Like Kendall, she was handed her first senior England call-up in November 2025 with Wiegman naming her in the squad for the friendlies against China and Ghana, citing her BWSL form and her performances for the England Under-23s as the basis for the decision.
No one could argue that it wasn’t deserved, but it also carried a particular significance for a player who took a significant risk leaving a club like Arsenal in search of gametime. It would have been easy for Godfrey to stay where she was comfortable and wait to be given the odd run out in cup games, but believing in her ability, she made the move to London City.
What Godfrey represents within the broader story of her new club is also worth noting. London City are the first club in the top tier without any affiliation to a men's team, a novel presence in the BWSL.
Owner Michelle Kang knows their ability to attract and develop young players like Godfrey will determine whether their model is sustainable and whether investing in youth can carry them to success. On current evidence, Freya Godfrey is as good an argument as any that it can.
This season's crop of young players have demonstrated that the BWSL is no longer a league in which youth is tolerated at the margins. There are teenagers being trusted to anchor defences, drive title challengers, lead the scoring charts for newly promoted clubs, and earn senior international call-ups mid-season as a matter of course rather than exception.
Talent has a way of making itself undeniable regardless of age, and all three of these players have proven that if you’re good enough, you’re old enough.
Better coaching environments with more sophisticated development pathways, coupled with a league that is increasingly willing to trust youth with real responsibilities, have created the conditions for moments like these. Let’s not forget, though, the players still have to take them, and Buurman, Kendall, and Godfrey have done exactly that.
What these players have shown is that 2025/26 is the beginning, not the peak, of women’s football in England, and that the BWSL appears to be in very good hands.