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Jamaica fell in love with the Swaby sisters the same summer it fell in love with its Reggae Girlz.
At the 2023 Women’s World Cup, Jamaica became one of the great stories of the tournament, picking up their first World Cup win, finishing ahead of Brazil in the group stage and securing their best finish by reaching the round of 16. At the heart of the defence that earned 0-0 draws with France and Brazil were sisters Allyson, now 28, and Chantelle, 26.
The story of two sisters playing centre-back together took on its own life and energy; their father, Lennox, even fielded interviews when Allyson scored the team’s first World Cup goal to defeat Panama 1-0.
“It’s funny because half the people didn’t know which one (of us) was which half the time,” laughs Allyson. “Some people might have thought that it was just one person. I don’t think either of us had thought about it that much but in hindsight, what we’ve done is really cool.
“I don’t think you realise, in the moment, how unique or special the situation is. Then, you get a bit removed and you’re, like: ‘We’ve done that and we’ve done that together’.”
Just over a year on, the pair speak from opposite ends of Europe. Allyson is in Italy, where she plays for AC Milan, and Chantelle in England, having signed for Leicester City in the summer.
Their careers have been nomadic — born in the United States and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, to a Jamaican father and English mother, between them they have had spells in the U.S., Scotland, France and Iceland — and, like any sisters, they lightly bicker over who is most fluent in French. Chantelle’s verdict is that her French is better than what Allyson describes as her “survival Italian”, but Allyson points out she has retained some French from her loan with Paris Saint-Germain in 2023.
“OK, she doesn’t ever speak to me in French, so she wouldn’t know,” says Chantelle. “You can ask the French-speaking players on my team. They’ll vouch for me.”
Chantelle (left) and Allyson Swaby helped Jamaica reach the last 16 of the 2023 Women’s World Cup (Dave Hewison/Speed Media/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Allyson chuckles.
“That’s your next interview,” she says. “We’ve definitely gotten closer now we’re doing our own thing but living similar types of lives. She knows my schedule. She knows when I’m taking a nap, when to FaceTime.”
The Swaby sisters demonstrate a similar synchrony in defence.
“Sometimes, you can just give her a look and you don’t really have to say anything,” Allyson says. “We’re thinking on the same wavelength.” She adds that watching each other’s games has given them “the ability to understand what the situation is going to look like before it’s actually happened”.
“Even if she’s not going to win a ball, I can usually tell before it’s even happening, so it’s just knowing each other’s tendencies really well. That makes all your decisions sometimes easier.”
Chantelle continues, “It’s really nice to have somebody who you feel like you can just say anything that you want, unapologetically, without having them feel any type of judgement.”
Allyson’s earliest memory of her and her sister playing together is at high school: Chantelle was tall for her age, so their parents promoted her to a different team in Allyson’s age group. They would play each other a few times a year.
“I hated it,” Allyson says. “Why is she not playing with kids her own age? This is my thing! Go do your own thing!”
Allyson Swaby in action for AC Milan against rivals Inter last month (Daniela Porcelli/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)
When they moved to the same team, their parents would be at the training ground for three or four hours, and the siblings would join each other’s sessions.
Both progressed through the U.S. college system. Allyson had aspirations to continue playing but was unsure how she could forge a career in football. A month before she was due to graduate from Boston College, the sisters took a call from the Jamaica women’s national team. The Reggae Girlz had been inactive for years, disbanded first in 2008 and again in 2016, but were back and aiming to qualify for the 2019 World Cup. They wanted the Swabys on board.
“That was the catalyst for me to go all-in on playing pro,” Allyson reflects, “but I was a bit nervous to even admit that it was what I really wanted to do because I didn’t know what that was going to look like.”
The pair grew up, Allyson explains, in a “fully Jamaican household”. Chantelle adds that they spent all their lives “identifying as Jamaican”. The majority of the women’s national team squad were born outside of the country. “The (national) motto of Jamaica is ‘Out of Many, One People’,” Allyson continues. “Our team embodies that so, so well. We’ve all had our different journeys to get us to that path of being on the team.”
She describes Chantelle’s Jamaica debut in 2018 as among the “top-five most nervous moments I’ve had in sports”. Chantelle was the camp’s late arrival and was brought on in midfield, with minutes to go, as a time-wasting substitute during a 2-2 draw in Haiti. “We were in front of 15,000 very, very hostile fans,” recalls Allyson, “and I remember thinking, ‘This must be like the scariest debut you could ever, ever have’. I was on the field and I just remember thinking, ‘This poor girl!’.”
To qualify for the 2019 and 2023 World Cups alongside her sister, she adds, “makes everything, like, bigger than yourself. A lot of people would be on this type of journey and it would be an individual achievement — and it’s, like, no, ‘This is something that we’ve done together’.”
The sentiment encapsulates the Reggae Girlz’s journey since their 2008 disbandment. Cedella Marley, daughter of Reggae icon Bob, spearheaded the team’s revival and since 2014, she has held the title of global ambassador of the Jamaica women’s football programme.
Despite the on-field achievements — including becoming, in 2019, the first Caribbean nation to reach a Women’s World Cup — the team has suffered from chronic underfunding and strained relationships with the Jamaican Football Federation (JFF). Their most recent World Cup preparations were dogged by issues with kit, pay, travel and accommodation; GoFundMe pages were established to support staff and the players, who also published an open letter in June calling for “immediate and systematic change” in the wake of “subpar” support from the JFF.
For Jamaica’s players, particularly the four liaising with the federation, last year’s tournament in Australia and New Zealand saw the most pressured matches of their careers played on either side of negotiations that would define the sport for generations.
“Allyson was one of the ones who had the back-and-forth communication with the federation,” says Chantelle.
“As a team, we came together and decided what we wanted to do, but it was them as four who were doing the late-night Zoom calls and having the meetings, often with the coaches. And I could only imagine: I was drained and I wasn’t even a part of that. It was definitely something that you don’t want to have to worry about while you’re trying to compete. In Australia, we were trying to figure out that the GoFundMe thing while we were playing our games.”
Chantelle Swaby joined Leicester City in July (Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images)
“We came to a collective agreement or understanding,” Allyson continues. “We thought, ‘Look, we need to make sure that as much of our energy right now can be channelled into playing and the performances on the pitch’. We thought we could fight in the lead-up. When we got to the tournament, it was, like, ‘This is the moment that we’ve been waiting four years for. Nothing can take away or distract from what we want to do on the field’.
“We released that (open letter) together, even if it did feel like there was a lot going on still, but making that conscious decision to just keep our minds on football was super important because it is really hard to juggle that stuff on and off the field.
“As a group, we’re strengthened by the adversity. It puts a chip on your shoulder sometimes; some extra bit of motivation to prove something to people. There are some things I wish I hadn’t dealt with but it has brought us the level of resilience that you need to be able to compete at that level.
“The biggest thing that this group wants for the future is to leave this in a place that can be built upon. It’s really sad when you think about a national team being inactive.”
All they have endured, Allyson says, has bred “another form of sisterhood” among the Jamaica national team. To go on camp is to be “hanging out with my sister and the rest of my best friends. I don’t think that my experience would be anything like what it is if she wasn’t a part of it. It really is our thing. It’s obviously a team sport — but I think it takes team sports to just another level”.
GO DEEPER
The pre-tournament chaos Jamaica survived to reach World Cup knockouts
(Top photo: Chantelle and Allyson Swaby; FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)