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<\/p>\nPhallon Tullis-Joyce is squirting deer blood into the dirt.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlood and water,\u201d the Manchester United and United States women\u2019s national team goalkeeper clarifies to The Athletic. There are chunks in the mix, too, congealing among the leaf litter and dark, scarlet rivulets a la Jackson Pollock.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, I had a water bottle yesterday with the potential PKs (penalty kicks) for Chelsea (if the League Cup final had gone to a shootout). Then today, I have a water bottle full of blood from Muntjac deer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a sick transition in, like, 24 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n Phallon Tullis-Joyce prepares the Komodo dragon enclosure for feeding time (Manchester United Foundation)<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old means sick in the cool way, in the \u2018Look, there\u2019s Manchester United Women\u2019s No 1 in Chester Zoo\u2019s Komodo dragon lair, helping deliver the world\u2019s largest living lizard her lunch\u2019 way.<\/p>\n
And it was cool. That was certainly the sentiment among the zoo-goers bottlenecking around the enclosure to catch a glimpse of Tullis-Joyce \u2014 wearing blue plastic hospital gloves, a cream United hoodie, dark-grey cargo trousers and gold hoop earrings as if in a special Vogue edition of National Geographic \u2014 on the other side of the glass.<\/p>\n
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It was cool that she was standing where they expected to find a four-foot-long venomous tube of scales, flicking its tongue ominously. Cool that she was squirting the red liquid in the myriad directions the accompanying zookeeper instructed. It was even cool when, a few minutes earlier, the carcass of a half-gutted Muntjac deer was lifted out of a black rubbish bag by said zookeeper, its entrails getting meticulously spread across various parts of the enclosure \u2014 a rock, a palm leaf, a different rock \u2014 until finally it was laid to rest beneath a bushel of straw and long grass for the lizard to, in a few minutes when she was released back into her home, find.<\/p>\n
But it was even cooler as those unfamiliar with United head coach Marc Skinner\u2019s team sheet discovered the identity of this mystery guest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s United\u2019s goalkeeper,\u201d whispered one teenage boy to another.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSwear.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHuh.\u201d A pause. \u201cThat\u2019s a crazy side-quest.\u201d<\/p>\n
And of course, there are some jokes: This is United\u2019s symbolic burial of their League Cup final hopes from the previous afternoon. Or their blood sacrifice to the Women\u2019s Champions League gods before their quarter-final first leg at Old Trafford against Bayern Munich next Wednesday.<\/p>\n
But such wisecracks are fleeting, particularly as Tullis-Joyce emerges from the enclosure to watch her masterwork in action: the Komodo\u2019s eventual furry feast.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s sick,\u201d says the second boy. He, too, means cool.<\/p>\n
Making wildlife, biology and conservation cool is Tullis-Joyce\u2019s thing.<\/p>\n
To scroll through the goalkeeper\u2019s social media pages is to take a field trip around the Earth itself: there she can be seen diving off Spain\u2019s Costa Brava in search of rejuvenated red coral, trekking in the Amazon rainforest researching stingless bees, gawking at a Barred Owl named Grandpa in Florida\u2019s Okefenokee Swamp (Tullis-Joyce is a big swamps fan) or wearing a safari hat while regaling her followers about the enigma that is a Leaf Scorpionfish (\u201cI\u2019m a sucker for ambush reef predators whose \u2018mohawk\u2019 or algae-covered dorsal fin resembles a swaying, decaying leaf to gobble up unsuspecting prey!\u201d).<\/p>\n
Alongside these videos are others depicting her \u201cother thing\u201d \u2014 being a professional goalkeeper in the highest echelon of women\u2019s football.<\/p>\n
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\n Manchester United were beaten by Chelsea in the League Cup final at the weekend (Adrian Dennis \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s tempting to view Tullis-Joyce as leading a double life. \u201cWhen not diving on a soccer field, I find myself diving into the nearest body of water,\u201d is the pithy catchphrase of her ambassadorship with environmental organisation 11th Hour Racing.<\/p>\n
Only this implies a division \u2014 by day, snorkel-masked eco warrior; by night, the Women\u2019s Super League\u2019s reigning co-Golden Glove winner (the award for the goalkeeper who keeps most clean sheets in the competition in a season).<\/p>\n
\u201cI always get asked: \u2018If you weren\u2019t a soccer player, what would you be?\u2019,\u201d she says. \u201cI really do believe you can be so many things at the same time. I use both of them together. Marine biology keeps me sane for some of the darker moments in the soccer world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monday presented this theory in action.<\/p>\n
Following United\u2019s 2-0 cup-final defeat by Chelsea<\/a> at Ashton Gate, Tullis-Joyce made the four-hour trek home from Bristol late on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n Less than 10 hours later, she was fresh-eyed and standing in front of a room of primary-school students, in the first of her three school sessions on Monday, spiritedly fielding questions about her ideal next destination (the Galapagos Islands to \u201ctrace the path of Charles Darwin\u201d), if she\u2019s ever seen a polar bear (yes, actually, when she visited Svalbard, Norway\u2019s most northerly community) or which animal most scares her (\u201cI probably wouldn\u2019t go near a polar bear, or maybe an alligator. But you don\u2019t have to be afraid. Once you learn more about something you become less afraid of them.\u201d).<\/p>\n The balance can seem exhausting, physically \u2014 United have reached the last eight in their maiden Champions League campaign, transforming a high-intensity season of domestic and international football into one which often involves three-day turnarounds between matches \u2014 but also mentally. (At one point on Monday, Tullis-Joyce rattles off the names of four recovering coral families to one student, before naming a slew of wilderness parks and the various creatures within them without skipping a beat.)<\/p>\n \u201cSleep is hard. My brain is constantly going,\u201d she says, which is a far less hyperbolic assessment when uttered in the breathless cantor that is Tullis-Joyce\u2019s default speech speed. But the Earth is big. To be slow is to miss something.<\/p>\n Yet, in a culture that so often encourages a monofocus for young athletes or precocious intellects, Tullis-Joyce has long been an active dissident, something encouraged by her mother but nurtured by her own drive. When Tullis-Joyce was rejected by her local Olympic Development Program at age 12, she committed herself to<\/a> \u201cwork, time and (sometimes) tears\u201d, taking on training sessions that spanned the gamut of convention (trash-can dives and blindfolded tennis-ball catches<\/a>) four times weekly, on top of the two-hour commutes to train at her local club.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In whatever minutes that existed in between, Tullis-Joyce was joining the National Ocean Sciences Bowl (a premier academic competition for high-school students in the United States, designed to stimulate interest in ocean sciences and related fields) branch at Longwood high school in New York City\u2019s eastern suburbs, visiting local beaches, analysing horseshoe crabs, competing in buzzer quizzes all over Long Island and consuming documentaries by English primatologist Jane Goodall and marine biologist and oceanographer Sylvia Earle, early idols of Tullis-Joyce\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very much a thing in American athletics that they want you to have this persona, especially on the field as a goalkeeper,\u201d she says. \u201cThey want you to be this barking goalkeeper (yelling instructions at team-mates durng games), but I do like to have a bit of compassion on the field. That\u2019s what I try to be: as compassionate on the field as I am off the field, especially with any wildlife around me, too.<\/p>\n \u201cI think of my brain as a little, sticky sponge. Any type of really cool fact, I try to stick onto my brain because I know how important it is to tell the students that when it does feel a little abysmal and dim, like, no, actually, this has happened just when it was doing this. And the students, you don\u2019t know what backgrounds they come from, so I\u2019m just trying to give as much as I can. I\u2019ve been afforded so much that I have to keep giving.\u201d<\/p>\n The desire to give back has driven Tullis-Joyce to apply her passion for wildlife and conservation beyond her own boundaries.<\/p>\n To attend the University of Miami in Florida, where she played in goal for their team (she still ranks in the top five of Miami\u2019s history for saves and shutouts across her 62 appearances) while pursuing a degree in marine biology, Tullis-Joyce was one of 118 students to receive the prestigious National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Hollings Scholarship, along with the school\u2019s full-tuition Ronald Hammond Scholarship. Under the latter\u2019s conditions, Tullis-Joyce was required to perform community service while studying (and playing top-flight women\u2019s college soccer).<\/p>\n For Tullis-Joyce, the clause was its own vocation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe outreach has always been a part of me,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s like, when you\u2019re given something, you then have to offer something \u2014 that\u2019s a big part of how I feel as a professional athlete. I\u2019ve met so many great professors, teachers and coaches that I want to give back what I\u2019ve been given.\u201d<\/p>\n Upon arriving in the red half of Manchester in September 2023 from Seattle Reign, where she spent any free hours diving off the nearest coast, Tullis-Joyce immediately sought opportunities for outreach. United\u2019s foundation scratched that itch, as its Eco Reds initiative \u2014 launched that year to build on the club\u2019s environmental sustainability strategy \u2014 quickly became her passion project.<\/p>\n It was Tullis-Joyce, according to those involved, who pushed the foundation to be more involved with local schools, going into classrooms and educating primary, secondary and college-level students about marine biology, ecology and conservation. \u201cIt was humble beginnings,\u201d Tullis-Joyce laughs, recalling the days of fashioning cuttlefish out of clay and pipecleaners.<\/p>\n Three years later, her commitment and passion have helped garner funding from donors to support multiple schools in having in-person conservation workshops or attending education sessions at Chester Zoo, like those The Athletic witnessed on Monday.<\/p>\n \n Phallon Tullis-Joyce mingles with fans after a USWNT game in May 2025 (Adam Bettcher\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Being within Tullis-Joyce\u2019s orbit for just an afternoon, it\u2019s easy to see how this funding has amassed.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2217342969-scaled.jpg\")
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