It was around two months into their relationship that Steph Catley and Dean Bouzanis realised the odds were stacked against them. They first met while both playing for Melbourne City, Bouzanis as goalkeeper for the A-League men’s side and Catley as captain of the W-League women’s team. A chance meeting at the training ground led to a brief conversation and as Bouzanis puts it, “one thing led to another”.

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But a few months later, Australia vice-captain Catley was on a plane to the US to play for the Orlando Pride. With the Australian season fitting in nicely around the NWSL season, many Matildas can juggle playing in both leagues, spending a chunk of the year in America before returning to Australia for the four months it takes to complete the W-League season.

“He (Bouzanis) actually ended up coming out to stay with me in Orlando during his off-season that year,” Catley says, smiling. “That was only about three and a half months into our relationship, so it was a big move on his behalf that early on. But if he hadn’t done that, it probably wouldn’t have worked because I was in America for so long. At the beginning of a relationship, that’s probably too much distance without knowing someone that well.”

Being in a relationship with a fellow professional footballer has its pros and cons, say the couple, one of the downsides being the unpredictability of where in the world one of them might be from one season to the next. But spending lockdown in Melbourne together meant they discovered one of the many pros: always having a training partner to do drills with, run alongside and compete against. “We get a little competitive,” says Catley, “but that makes it fun.”

The 26-year-old also likes the fact that she has an educated, experienced voice to call on after games. “I know I’m going to get a very knowledgeable view on how I’ve played,” she says, adding with a laugh: “Though sometimes, I’ll come home and won’t want to know what he thinks. But if I do, then I know it’s coming from someone who understands the game, so it’s going to be an honest and probably accurate view on how I’ve played.”

Different from a parent, for example?

“If I stand still, my mum thinks I play well,” says Catley, still laughing.

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“We’ll watch each other’s games live as much as we can,” says Bouzanis. “But if Steph is going through her clips and asks, ‘What do you think about this?’, then we’ll look at it. And the same for myself. But we don’t sit there and analyse our games. We let the coaches do that.”

Catley looks across at him and smiles, before adding: “He usually just shows me the cool side-volleys or something he wants me to watch on repeat: ‘Look what I did in training. Now look at this angle…’”

Four years after that first training ground encounter, the pair are talking to The Athletic from the living room of the St Albans apartment they’ve shared since swapping Melbourne City for new clubs based on opposing sides of London and equally distant ends of the football pyramid.

It was the beginning of July when Arsenal Women posted a 30-second long video on Twitter announcing Catley as their big summer signing. One month later, there was another Twitter announcement, this time from National League side Sutton United welcoming Bouzanis as their new goalkeeper.

Enough talk 🤫

We mean business.

— Arsenal Women (@ArsenalWFC) July 2, 2020

“Steph’s deal came up first,” explains Bouzanis. “Joe (Montemurro, the Arsenal head coach) approached her around a year ago. Come January, they had started talking and things got wrapped up relatively quickly.” Around the same time that Catley’s move was being finalised, Bouzanis was coming to terms with the postponement of the A-League season due to COVID-19 and the uncertainty of what the future held.

He’d spent the 2018-19 season on loan at PEC Zwolle in the Eredivisie, a period that gave him a feel for being back in Europe. Bouzanis was just 16 when he first came to England on a trial with Liverpool, spending three weeks at Melwood, where he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso. The keeper so impressed then-manager Rafa Benitez that he returned to Australia with the offer of a three-year deal.

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It led to a seven-year stint away from home, during which Bouzanis had spells at Accrington Stanley, Oldham, Carlisle United and Aris FC in Greece. Ever since returning to Australia in 2014, he’d harboured an ambition to return to England. “It sort of became like my second home,” he says. “I love the culture, the football… everything, really.”

Even so, neither Catley nor Bouzanis expected him to be able to secure a move back to England amid the current uncertainty. “I wasn’t at all expecting him to come with me,” says Catley. “We’ve always had a pretty good understanding in our relationship of making sure we both get the most out of our careers and if that means one of us is playing in a different part of the world for a certain amount of time, then we’re both very understanding about that, so I just wanted him to do what was going to be best for his career.”

By the time Catley was signing her contract, Bouzanis was talking to a few interested clubs in Germany, so the couple were hopeful that they might end up just a short plane ride away from one another. But nothing concrete emerged until Bouzanis received a surprise phone call. “Sutton United managed to get in touch with me — just randomly, really,” he says. “I think my agent had put feelers out there to see what was going on but because of COVID, we didn’t know if clubs were looking or when football would be back. But when Sutton were interested, we got talking and the deal was done.”

Bouzanis, 29, knew of the club from their appearance against Arsenal in the fifth round of the FA Cup in 2017 and had played against two of his soon-to-be team-mates previously: Craig Eastmond in the FA Youth Cup final and Wayne Brown, who had played for Newcastle Jets in the A-League. After a chat with manager Matt Gray, who detailed his ambitions for the club and the way he wants to play, Bouzanis was sold.

For Catley, the pull of the WSL and of Arsenal in particular was immediately strong. She’d considered coming over after leaving Orlando in 2017 but was convinced to return to the US by a handful of her team-mates at Melbourne, who also plied their trade for Seattle Reign in the NWSL. But after two years there, she wanted a new challenge and a chance to breathe. “Playing in America and Australia for six or seven years takes a toll on your body. When you don’t have an off-season, there’s no time to reset and stop, so there were a couple of reasons why I finally came over but it’s a league I’ve been watching for a long time now and wanted to be a part of.”

And Arsenal is a club that’s already in her blood. Catley’s 97-year-old grandfather grew up in Highbury, within touching distance of the former ground and is a huge fan. “He was very happy when I made the move,” says Catley, who got him a shirt as soon as the move was finalised. “It’s hard for them to watch the games unless someone is there to set it up for them, and the time difference is a bit rough but they watch all the highlights and read all the articles afterwards. They’re quite tech-savvy for 97.”

It was Catley who flew into London first, spending her first two weeks in an Airbnb with fellow Australia international Lydia Williams, who Arsenal signed shortly after her. By the time Bouzanis arrived a few weeks later, Catley, 26, had found an apartment (in the same complex as the third of Arsenal’s Australian contingent, Caitlin Foord) and discovered the joys of red tape in the UK.  “It’s quite hard to start life over here,” she says. “You need a bank account to get your phone; to get a bank account, you need an address but you can’t get a place without a bank account. It was probably good that by the time he came, I’d done a few things that made his life a bit easier.”

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With Bouzanis now in situ and preparing for the start of the National League season in October — although that remains in doubt — the couple have been able to start their new life together. “We lived together in Melbourne for three years,” says Dean, “but it’s always been on and off because Steph was only there for four or five months before she went to America. So this is the first time we’ll be living together properly every day.”

Catley has a two-year contract at Arsenal and Bouzanis is on a one-year deal with full-time Sutton but plans to stay in England for longer, hopeful that a wide network of clubs will lead to opportunities. For both players, the past month or so has been a time of adjusting to a new environment but Bouzanis is the one with perhaps the most to get used to, having moved from the top level of professional men’s football in Australia to the fifth tier of the English game.

“I played in League One with Oldham and League Two with Accrington Stanley, so I knew that the standards and facilities would differ from Liverpool and Melbourne City,” he says. “Those clubs have world-class facilities that not every club in the world is going to have. But the thing I’ve noticed at Sutton is that while what they have is not Premier League standard, everything they do is to a professional level. There’s a small gym there but they make sure you remain strong with what they have and the training sessions are still sharp and intense.

“Because I’ve been in bigger clubs before, everything they do and the standard they demand has been driven into me, so to come to a club like Sutton, where things are done properly and professionally, is important to me.”

While Bouzanis can point to the Champions League experience of team-mate Eastmond (who scored an unfortunate own goal for Arsenal against Shakhtar Donetsk in November 2010), Catley walked into a dressing room packed with world-class talent that was preparing for a Champions League quarter-final against Paris Saint-Germain. “When I was younger, I used to get nervous and overthink all that stuff,” she says about meeting her new team-mates for the first time. “But as you get older, you know yourself better — not only as a person but also as a player. You have a good understanding of what you bring to the team and more self-confidence going into situations like that.

“It’s been incredible. Every day, the standard of training and the players that we have blows me away. It’s the most fun football, honestly.” Catley picks out one team-mate who’s made a particular impression on her already: “I’ve been re-inspired by Kim Little,” she says of the Arsenal captain. “I played with her in Melbourne when I was fairly young, so I’m not sure I got the full grasp of how good she is. She’s one of the most talented players I’ve ever played with.

“I feel like she’s not recognised to the level that some other players are and that’s crazy to me. I see her every day at training and she’s unbelievable. I knew how good she was but she’s gone to another level. She’ll be so embarrassed by me saying that too… she’s so humble.”

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On the day we speak, both players have been at their respective training grounds, with Catley preparing for an FA Cup tie against Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday and Bouzanis deep in pre-season training. It begs the question: when both sides of a partnership are professional athletes, with all the fatigue and recovery protocols that entails, who gets left with the “grunt work”? Who does the cooking, the washing and all of those things that a physically-drained athlete would put last on their list of priorities?

“Great question,” says Catley. “I like thinking about it like that. Sometimes I forget that we do the same job.”

“Steph does a lot, don’t get me wrong,” says Dean, smiling as he glances to his left where she’s sitting. “She does more than me, actually, but we try to balance it as much as we can. If I’m home early, I’ll try and do something around the house: cook that night or order something in for us. Whereas when I’m training and Steph’s off, she’ll do it, so I think it’s a good balance… but I think Steph does a bit more.”

Next to him, Catley is laughing. “Over time, you figure out what you both need to put into a relationship,” she says. “There have been times where one of us felt like we’re doing more but that’s part of a relationship. Four years later, I think we’ve got a good routine and we know if one’s off, then the other one will put in a bit more effort because you get home from football training and you’re cooked, so it can be difficult. But we’ve figured it out now, I think.”

On Saturday afternoon, Bouzanis will leave the pitch after Sutton’s friendly tie away at Dorking Wanderers shortly before Catley takes to the field against Tottenham at Meadow Park. Later that evening, they’ll reconvene at home where, if they feel like it, they’ll chat through their afternoons.

“It’s just an ideal situation,” says Bouzanis — and it’s one that might never have happened had he not taken that trip from Melbourne to Orlando four years ago.

(Top photo: Getty Images)