🏏 Sun, 7 Sep 2025 12:00 BST
Brighton Women
vs
Aston Villa Women
Positions estimated (no formation data from the API)
Substitutes
Substitutes
Match Preview
- Brighton open the WSL season with three Japanese internationals in the squad. Takako Seike, 29, starts wide on the right and centre-back Moeka Minami, 26, anchors the defence, while 20-year-old holding midfielder Fuka Tsunoda, signed only in September 2025, takes a place on the bench. All three arrived in England after spells with Urawa Reds Ladies, giving the opening weekend an unmistakable Japanese thread.
- Minami joined permanently from AS Roma in June 2025, having helped the Italian side to back-to-back Serie A titles and captained Japan at the U-19 Asian Championship and U-20 World Cup. Her first assignment is Rachel Daly, the 33-year-old England striker who won the WSL golden boot with 22 goals in her debut season at Villa and was named PFA Women's Player of the Year. That physical duel will shape the opening exchanges.
- Seike is the attacker who scored the first debut hat-trick in WSL history, arriving after sweeping the WE League's scoring title, MVP award and Best XI in 2023-24. Coaches value her ability to fill any outfield role. On the right she pairs with Scotland international Rachel McLauchlan to stretch the pitch and drag Villa's defenders away from central areas.
- Brighton's midfield leans on experience. Fran Kirby, 32, nicknamed 'Mini Messi' and a two-time PFA Player of the Year, lines up with Jelena Cankovic, the 30-year-old Serbia international who won back-to-back WSL titles at Chelsea and also played for Barcelona. Holding it together is Maisie Symonds, made captain in the summer of 2025 at 22 after joining from Chelsea's academy in 2021.
- Villa counter with youth and forward drive. Missy Bo Kearns, 24, became Liverpool's youngest ever captain at 20 and won the 2023 Women's Football Awards young player prize; she sets the tempo from deep. Alongside her, Netherlands international Jill Baijings, 24, arrived via a spell at Bayern Munich and supplies the creative passing. Experience versus energy is one of the match's defining contrasts.
- Arsenal connections run through both squads. Villa field Switzerland right-back Noelle Maritz, who spent years at Arsenal and Wolfsburg, Ireland centre-back Anna Patten, an Arsenal academy graduate, and goalkeeper Sabrina D'Angelo, also a former Gunner. Brighton, for their part, host two Arsenal loanees in 19-year-old Michelle Agyemang and Sweden forward Rosa Kafaji.
- Agyemang leads the Brighton line at 19, already the best young player of EURO 2025 and a striker who scored 41 seconds into her senior England debut after making her WSL bow at 16. Villa's answer is a well-matched centre-back pairing: the 178cm Patten, strong in the air, and Ocean Delanne, 25, a French defender who made 66 appearances and scored four goals for Montpellier.
- Both goalkeepers carry pedigree. Brighton start Chiamaka Nnadozie, the 180cm Nigeria number one signed from Paris FC in the summer of 2025. Villa rely on Sabrina D'Angelo, 32, an Olympic bronze medallist with Canada in Rio who was named MVP of the penalty shootout when she won the NWSL title, with Ellie Roebuck, formerly of Manchester City and Barcelona, waiting in reserve.
- The benches offer late options. Brighton keep Carla Camacho, the 20-year-old signed from Real Madrid in August 2025 and a U-17 World Cup winner in 2022, plus Kafaji, who scored 28 goals for BK Hacken. Villa can call on Mille Taylor, 25, who debuted for Chelsea's first team at 16 and has since played for Arsenal and in the NWSL before switching allegiance to Scotland in 2025.