“This isn’t a pause, it’s a new perspective”: Football star Zećira Mušović on choosing pregnancy at her career peak

At 29, I’m in what many would call the prime of my professional football career – playing for Chelsea FC and the Swedish national team. As a goalkeeper, I’ve spent years chasing goals, both literal and personal. Now, I’m pursuing a different kind. As this pivotal point in my career, my partner and I decided to try for a baby. And here I am – carrying a little ball inside of me, rather than chasing one across the pitch. In just a few summer months, I’ll become a mother.

For as long as I can remember, my biggest dream has been to create a family of my own – to have children with someone I love. To me, that’s the purpose of life: to pass something on. I come from a large, close-knit family, where relationships are nurtured and deeply valued. But I’m also an elite athlete. If you had asked me five years ago whether I wanted kids during my career, the answer would have been a firm 'no'. Football first, then family. That was the plan.

But plans shift. Seeing fellow female athletes become mothers, and grow stronger for it, changed my perspective. My dream of becoming a mother grew too loud to ignore, even at the peak of my career. While many see pregnancy as a pause in sport, I believe the opposite. This is a challenge – one that will make me better. I want career and family to exist side by side, not as choices forced against each other in a world that still sees them as mutually exclusive.

Pregnancy in sport remains a taboo: a subject rarely spoken about outside the locker room. We keep it quiet, perhaps out of fear. Fear of being seen as distracted, not fully committed, not focused solely on performance. And then there’s the logistics of it all: planning a pregnancy around a packed competition calendar. Can you plan it? Should you? And if you do, is it a betrayal to keep those plans private until they become real?

We’ve built this silence ourselves. We’ve accepted that pregnancy, especially the early stages, is something to hide. But those early weeks are when you need the most support. I remember my first trimester vividly: the nausea, the exhaustion, the endless white lies to explain how I was feeling. Faking it, hoping to make it through. I was terrified to tell the team doctor. Even more so to tell my coach. Would they be disappointed? Would they resent me? After all, it was my dream. Why should it matter to them?

When I did share my pregnancy with those around me, what I received in return was more than I could have ever hoped for. The response from my club – from everyone – was everything a pregnant woman could wish for in a workplace. I was clear about what I wanted: a safe pregnancy, yes, but also the space to keep pushing myself. I want to challenge perceptions of what pregnancy looks like in elite sport – how much we can still grow, still improve, even as we carry life inside us.

I knew I was optimistic, excited even. But I couldn’t expect those around me to meet me there. And yet, they did. The support has been immense. Because of it, my day-to-day hasn’t changed drastically. I’m still improving, still growing – in more ways than one.

I don’t see this as a pause in my career. If anything, it’s allowed me to slow down just enough to gain new perspective. I’ve always been someone who chases goals relentlessly, rarely stopping, often missing the smaller moments along the way. Now, I’m more grounded. I trust that time will reveal what’s next, as long as I do my best in the present. I zoom out to see the big picture, then zoom in to refine the details. I let joy guide me. And even though that’s not how I’ve typically operated, I must admit – it’s a beautiful place to be.

So while my Swedish teammates are preparing for the upcoming European Championship, I’m preparing for a different kind of grande finale – the beginning of motherhood. I’m stepping into a new role, one that comes with the superpowers so many mothers describe. And just imagine: if we start to understand what a transformative force this can be – how profoundly it can shape us – maybe we’ll finally see that motherhood and career aren’t at odds. Maybe we’ll start to understand the true power of choosing both.