Melbourne City have set a new standard for the Westfield W-League and the jewel in a glittering crown is diminutive Scottish maestro Kim Little.
The league’s new club are on track for a premiership win in their maiden season having racked up an incredible nine straight wins. And while the real prize remains next month’s grand final, City can claim the premiership with a win on Monday at Brisbane Roar.
Little has won the league premiership with her two most recent clubs – Arsenal and Seattle Reign – in seven out of the eight past years, and hopes to add another with City.
It is simply an extraordinary record. “I don’t like losing,” laughs Little when the matter of her remarkable run is raised.
The Aberdeen native is a bona-fide star in USA’s NWSL, a league where many of the headlines are grabbed by Americans.
Though mostly playing as an attacking midfielder, Little was the league’s top-scorer in 2014 and second top-scorer this year.
Now she is thoroughly enjoying a new chapter in her football odyssey at Melbourne City.
“It has been great to come out here and get the season off to such a great start,” Little says. “Australia has been a place I always wanted to visit so it has been a great opportunity for me.
“The club is run very professionally, and on the pitch the team plays a nice style of possession football which is the way I like to play. We have many great Australian internationals here which helped make the transition smooth.”
Off the field Little is lapping up the Melbourne lifestyle, comparing it favourably to another 21st-century city where she spends much of her year: Seattle.
“A few of us like to go out and have brunch and coffee,” Little says when asked how she fills her days between training and playing matches. “When we can, we go to St Kilda or along the river. There are so many places, and I think we have been to a different one every time.
“It is a cool city and we are getting to see a lot, and do a lot of cool things. I really like Melbourne and it is just a little bit similar to Seattle, though much warmer here. It is a very cosmopolitan city.
“Going to outdoor cinemas a couple of times has been fun too, and you certainly can’t do that back home in the UK.”
Not that Little is seemingly distracted by off-field activities. She has scored five goals, and is averaging a goal a game to be among a pack of players chasing Westfield W-League top-scorer Larissa Crummer.
And if Melbourne City’s results are not impressive enough already, Little says her side have further room for improvement.
“In some games we have performed really well, and in other games I think we felt we could have done more in terms of possession or scoring more goals.
“But in general of course we have to be happy, having not lost and with so many cleansheets.
“We can be better overall, and it is just a case of improving our performances going into the last part of the season.”
