Lucy Bronze: 'Euro 2022 was everything the Lionesses had dreamed of'

GiveMeSport

·30 September 2022

Lucy Bronze: 'Euro 2022 was everything the Lionesses had dreamed of'

In her exclusive column for GiveMeSport Women, England and Barcelona superstar Lucy Bronze discusses winning Euro 2022.

Maybe you’d expect my life to be different since winning Euro 2022, but on a personal level, not a lot has changed. I’ve just been sent a few free pizzas!

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But everything has completely transformed for the Lionesses. Our matches are now selling out straightaway, which is incredible. We’ve definitely gained a lot of fans off the back of the tournament.

We knew that Euro 2022 was going to be bigger than anything that had come before. We hoped for the best. We wanted to win and for the stadiums to be packed out. For that to actually happen was a dream come true.

Winning Euro 2022 at Wembley

Beating Germany in front of 87,000 fans was very special. Playing at a packed out Wembley, the astonishing noise in the stadium – those are moments we’ll always remember.

It was something none of us had ever experienced before. There will be very few times where we’ll have a moment like that, playing at a final with that much support for us. It was almost too good to be true.

The team always had a silent belief that we could win Euro 2022, but I think the quarter-final match against Spain was a pivotal moment.

They were the toughest team that we played against, and probably the one game where we were outplayed. I think it was Spain’s best game of the tournament as well.

It gave us so much confidence to win against a team with so much talent. We knew that was a big moment for us, even though there were still two more games to go.

The semi-final against Sweden was the most enjoyable match. Everything seemed to go our way, and it was amazing to have the game wrapped up so early. We got to enjoy our time on the pitch a little bit more, and it meant we were going to the final for the first time in ages!

Breaking the “semi-final curse”

We’ve experienced a lot of semi-final heartbreak in the past, so it was brilliant to get past that.

Things really went our way at Euro 2022, and we were really lucky within the squad. We kept the same starting 11 throughout the tournament – none of those 11 players had to miss a game.

Nobody got injured, nobody received too many yellow cards, and subsequently the starting lineup was never altered.

We had everybody fully fit and ready to go when they were needed, and that really helped us break the “semi-final curse”.

World Cup aspirations

It was sad to say goodbye to Jill Scott and Ellen White, who have been part of the Lionesses for so long. Now they have both retired, the squad is already looking different to the group which won Euro 2022.

Jill and Ellen will be a huge miss to the squad, but I guess their retirement gives people an opportunity to step up. Lauren James and Ebony Salmon can add to the talent, as can players such as Jordan Nobbs and Katie Zelem, who have been in and around the England set-up before.

I definitely won’t be retiring anytime soon! I’ll hold the mantle of the oldest player in the team for a little bit. I feel like I’ve been one of the most experienced for a while, so my role will pretty much stay the same.

I think the biggest thing that will improve the squad before the World Cup is having more time with manager Sarina Wiegman and the current group of staff.

Sarina wasn’t even in the role for 12 months before Euro 2022, so some things had to be pushed through to make sure we were ready. By the time the World Cup comes around, we’ll have a really strong foundation built with the manager and an amazing set of players.

Everybody will have their eye on England’s match against the United States next week, and a lot of people will be thinking that whoever triumphs will be the favourite to win the World Cup.

Both England and the US are two of the strongest teams in the world right now, but I don’t think anybody who’s winning a game in October is necessarily going to win a World Cup final in the summer.

Sure, it will give us confidence as a squad to know that we can beat the best team in the world. But at the same time, there’s a long way to go until the World Cup!

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