Park named United's Player of the Match v Juventus

Thursday 18 December 2025 11:58

Jess Park has been named Manchester United Women's Player of the Match after Wednesday's 1-0 win away to Juventus in the UEFA Champions League.

The midfielder scored the only goal in our final fixture of the league phase, before picking up UEFA's official star-player accolade shortly after full-time.

To add to that prize, our no.8 has now been confirmed as the pick of the majority of supporters voting in the United App and on ManUtd.com.

Park accumulated an overriding 70 per cent of votes in our Player of the Match poll, to finish ahead of fellow nominees Maya Le Tissier (17 per cent), Dominique Janssen and Melvine Malard (both seven per cent).

Thank you to everyone who got involved in deciding our winner.

Who gets your vote as Player of the Match?poll

Who gets your vote as Player of the Match?

'I LOVE PLAYING FOOTBALL!'

Park's 18th-minute strike was a brilliant curling finish into the far top corner, and the highlight of her performance in a central attacking midfield position.

The summer signing from Manchester City has most often featured from the right wing for the Reds, but found the net in a different role on Wednesday night.

“It felt good [to score]. I saw the goal open up and I thought, ‘I’m going to hit this’. I saw it hit the back of the net, so I was buzzing with that,” Jess said to MUTV's Ben Ibson post-match.

“I just wanted to create moments, play with the girls around me, and I thought we did that well tonight.

“It was good fun [in a central role]. I love playing central, I love playing wide, I love playing football! I just want to be on the pitch.”

'PARK MAKES WATCHING FOOTBALL A JOY'
Words from Joe Nelson, on duty for United's social media team in Turin

After Wednesday’s match, I had the privilege of taking a picture of Jess Park with her Player of the Match award - an honour she seems to be getting almost every week since she arrived at United.

As usual, Jess was generous with her time and both quiet and confident when chatting about her performance in Turin. Indeed, quietly confident is possibly the best way to describe the dynamic midfielder, whose boots appear to be made of Velcro.

There are always those players who just make watching football a joy, and she is one of them. That is the best compliment I can pay a player, because stats may say one thing but feeling accounts for that rich connection with certain players.

Every time she picks up the ball there is anticipation that something will happen and then when she drops a shoulder and leaves an opposition player - often double her size - chasing shadows, it fills you with glee.

The picture of Jess with her UEFA Player of the Match award.

There was an element of good fortune about her winning goal in the first half of the Juventus win, but Park had been a threat already by that point, and continued to do so after.

This match saw our no.8 occupy the central attacking midfield role, rather than being deployed on the right-hand side, and she clearly relished this. Juventus couldn’t live with her.

Stepping off to a chorus of applause from some 200 travelling United supporters, Park epitomised the attacking quality and aggressive defending that characterised the win in Turin.

Her summer move from neighbours and rivals City is looking more and more shrewd by the day.

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