WHEN it comes to the end of a long and physically taxing season, many footballers have just one place in mind – the beach.
That wasn’t necessarily the case for Manchester United goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce, however, who instead joined a top conservationist on a fascinating trip to the Amazon Rainforest this summer.
Tullis-Joyce is about to enter her second term as United’s No1[/caption]
Tullis-Joyce[/caption]
After finishing third in the WSL table with United last season and collecting her Golden Glove award, the 28-year-old jetted off to Brazil to research stingless bees with Dr. Rosa Vásquez Espinoza.
“So right now I’m into wildlife filmmaking,” the USA international told SunSport. “I went to an event for wildlife filmmaking in Bristol, and just so happened to meet the researcher who was going to the Amazon, who studies stingless bees.
“She’s incredible in pairing indigenous knowledge and traditional knowledge with the scientific world, so that’s her biggest passion.
“She’s studying stingless bees right now, and I was like, ‘Hey, I’d love to join and I’ll shadow you and I’ll try to learn as much as I can.’
“Because I can see myself doing that after my career as well. So that was my biggest interest and I was just lucky to be able to join her.”
Tullis-Joyce is about to enter her second term as United’s No1 having taken over from Mary Earps last summer.
Her debut season between the sticks was nothing short of remarkable as she took home the WSL Golden Glove and earned a place in the WSL Team of the Season and the PFA Team of the Year.
But the goalkeeper insists it was all down to her team-mates: “It’s great to share these moments with my team-mates. I mean everything, those accolades are all thanks to them. You know, it was a really big collective effort.”
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Having already proven herself in the top division for one of the world’s biggest clubs, Tullis-Joyce is now aiming to fine-tune her game for the new campaign.
She continued: “Last season, right before the season had started, my goal was to just show my personality, let the supporters and let my teammates know and let other teams know who I am and showing up in the league.
“And so now it’s really about finesse for me and really getting those little small details right so that I can continue to grow and be the best version of myself for this team so that we can do even better things than last year.”
Despite qualifying for the Champions League for just the second time in their history last season, the Red Devils endured a disappointing end to the campaign after losing the FA Cup final to Chelsea.
However, Tullis-Joyce says that she, her team-mates and head coach Marc Skinner have already started reflecting on and learning from the 3-0 defeat.
The USA superstar said: “I think you saw a version of ourselves that maybe wasn’t the best and I think it gave us all the more fuel now for this year and all the more information of what we need to be going into the future.
“And so that for myself personally, just making sure that I’m connected and communicating with my back line, being as present as possible in every single moment of the games, so that I can make even more saves this season and help keep my team in it, you know, give us the best opportunity to just keep growing as a team.
“Sometimes those tough losses are your biggest learning moments because it doesn’t let you settle.”
Off the pitch, the 28-year-old is a keen scuba diver having majored in marine biology at the University of Miami. Hugely passionate about the environment, she sometimes spends her free time creating educational videos for her social media followers to highlight fun facts about marine life – when she is not exploring the ocean herself.
“I love scuba diving any chance that I get,” Tullis-Joyce told SunSport. “It’s a little more difficult here and the weather can be a bit unpredictable with the wind and the tides and the currents and everything.
“But when that’s not available to me, I do like to create like my own series on my Instagram and my YouTube of these Phishy Phinds videos and just sharing all that I’ve learned within the realm of marine biology to share with anybody in the sports realm that wants to learn a little bit more about science.
“So that’s kind of what I do in my free time is make little innovations.”
When she eventually hangs up her gloves, the USA international hopes to continue educating people through wildlife filmmaking in the hope of contributing to the preservation of protected areas both on land and at sea.
“Oh, for sure, yeah, I’d love to go into the realms of wildlife filmmaking and then also get into the realm of marine protected areas and being a researcher and being a scientific scuba diver for marine protected areas as well and making sure that we can expand those and keep our oceans healthy and our environment healthy.
“That’s definitely my biggest goal after this career that I have now.”