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Lucy Bronze feels that players are under pressure to help women's football 'explode'

Lucy Bronze feels that players are under pressure to help women's football 'explode'

Lucy Bronze feels that every player at Euro 2025 is under pressure to perform to help women's football "explode".

The England defender believes that every team competing at the tournament wants to play at their best to help the continuing growth of the women's game.

Bronze said: "Every single player that puts on a shirt in this tournament probably feels that.

"I can imagine the Swiss team feel that because they’re the home nation. Every other team wants to replicate what England did in 2022, what the Netherlands did before us, and really boost women’s football and we know that success comes from that.

"We know that we’re very fortunate in England that when we have success it really does explode the game and I think it’s what we want all over Europe and all over the world."

The Lionesses take on Sweden in the quarter-finals on Thursday (17.07.25) and Bronze explained that the team have been ignoring outside noise since their disappointing defeat to France in their opening game.

The Chelsea star said: "Coming off the back of the France game and having a lot of talking points actually brought the team closer together.

"I think you saw that in the two performances that came after. We’re not focused too much on noises around other teams or ourselves. We’re only focused on what we do on the training pitch, what we do in games, how we recover, how we perform and how we lift each other up."

Bronze also provided an explanation for the team's "proper England" mantra.

She said: "We have a lot of younger players and new players who have very different experiences of playing for England compared to the likes of myself, who know that England used to have to dig deep all the time.

"The 2015 World Cup was the first time we beat Germany – that’s insane to think about now – but England in the past had to dig out performances and was the underdog, not the favourite.

"This England team has developed from there, football has changed. Obviously we’re a very talented team, with a lot of technical and tactical ability, but we don’t want to ever forget that we are England, we are ‘proper England’, and if push comes to shove we can win a game in any means possible."

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