Welcome to Up Front. I'm Chloe Morgan and I'm Rachel O'Sullivan. Today we're joined by Sophie

Howard, centreback for FC Como in Syria. Having been born and raised in Germany, Sophie began her

professional career at Hoffenheim before playing college football in the US for the Colorado Rapids

and Colorado Pride before returning to Hoffenheim for a second spell.

She then spent six seasons in England with Reading and Leicester.

We're delighted to have Sophie on the pod today to talk about her career, past, present and future,

and to hear all about her sunny, sunny life in Como, the most stylish club in the world, as it's been called.

Sophie, welcome to the pod.

First time on, thank you so much for joining us.

Can you tell us where you're joining us from?

And can you explain the view?

Because I think all of us here in rainy, miserable, dismal England, just need a bit more

positivity.

Yeah, to be fair, I do feel really sorry for you guys.

But I'm currently recording from Shislauga, which is a town in the middle of Koma and Milan.

That's where our training ground is based.

So, North Italy and my view, I mean, it's a tiny village, so it's not too scenic,

but I've got the sunshine out on the balcony. And, yeah, just a lot of greenery, which is quite nice. Love that. I'm already jealous. Honestly, I'd love to. I went to Lake Como when I was, I think that was about 20, 21 or so, but I was on a student budget. So I stayed in a hostel, it was horrible, ate like moldy sandwiches and I just feel like the

experience that you guys have in is probably slightly better than that, a more elite and premium

feeling. I was there this summer on the way, like from, we drove after the Euros in Switzerland

over the mountains to Italy and we spent two nights in Como and it was beautiful. So I'm very

jealous of your whole setup. Como is beautiful, but you just said like the journey to Como, we did that when we moved down here. And that's probably even more beautiful than just Combo itself. I'd almost say. Yeah, the winding roads. It's a challenge, but it was very, very nice, very fun. Go on, Clow. Right, well, I think, I mean, I don't don't want to know anymore in a way. Like, I kind of don't, I don't want to... Even more, yeah, I'm not there, so I feel a little bit aggrieved by that. But let's start with something super, super poverty, because obviously you're having such an amazing season so far, currently sitting second behind leaders Roma. you've got to be really super excited and sort of pumped about how the kind of first season

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