“Natalie Portman is my boss,” says Eni Aluko, who has become accustomed to a star-studded workforce since relocating to Los Angeles as sporting director of Angel City FC.
Hollywood actress Portman is part of a majority female ownership group boasting a plethora of A-list investors who have founded the new National Women’s Soccer League side, with the club set to make their debut in the competition this month.
Among the extensive high-profile backers are tennis icons Serena Williams and Billie Jean King, Winter Olympic gold medallist Lindsey Vonn, actresses Eva Longoria and Jennifer Garner, TV host James Corden, former US soccer stars Abby Wambach and Mia Hamm and a number of entrepreneurs, YouTubers, pop stars and other former sports professionals.
It made for a daunting Zoom interview for Aluko after she was approached to take on the role of sporting director, though the former England striker proved a hit with the all-star panel.
“I remember thinking, ‘don’t look at them – look at you notes and the presentation and try to deliver as best you can what you would do’. And they loved it,” Aluko tells BBC Sport.
After finishing her professional career at Juventus, Aluko was working as the director for women’s football at Aston Villa when the opportunity arose to join the franchise in California, though it was not a straightforward decision.
“You are moving to the other side of the world,” she explains. “The whole point of retiring and moving back home was to spend more time with my family and friends, claw back time I missed playing professional football, so it wasn’t a no-brainer at all.
“It was more a case of if I don’t do this, don’t take this unique opportunity to build a club from scratch, I am probably never going to get that opportunity again.”
It helped, of course, that she was struck by the names already entwined in the Angel City project and that is something that has caught the imagination of the Los Angeles locals too, with the club already selling 14,000 season tickets.
“Meeting them was surreal,” says Aluko. “I remember meeting Mia Hamm in Los Angeles for the first time and I was just like ‘wow, it’s Mia Hamm, this is ridiculous’.
“I watched Julie Foudy win the World Cup, Abby Wambach win the World Cup – and now they are my colleagues.
“Natalie Portman is my boss. I have met her several times, spoken to her kids about football and what training session we are doing – it is a privilege to be given the responsibility to try to build something that is the idea of all these amazing people.”