Top 33 Lucy Bronze Quotes

I wanna play until I am 45 if my body will let me. After football, I have no idea.

I don’t call myself a women’s footballer; I say I’m a footballer.

At Lyon, there’s 20 other superstars there – I’m not the best player there. I’m not the best player at England.

I think my level of cuisine was pretty good even before I came to France, but it’s the wine here that’s really improved my palette – when I have it, anyway. It’s meant to be good for you, right?

I adored my brother when I was younger, so I wanted to do everything he did.

Football is something I would never give up on, whether I ended up playing professional or in a Sunday league team.

I just want to challenge myself all the time.

I started on the phones, taking orders, and then I did the toppings, making the pizzas, cutting and boxing them – everything, really.

It’s a rite of passage for all women to make sure the next generation is in a better place than you. I will play my part.

I didn’t dream of joining Man City as a professional one day, or representing England, because I didn’t know that was even possible.

When I signed for Lyon, I pictured myself lifting the Champions League trophy, and I don’t think that has ever changed.

We are footballers, so if you’ve got to play with someone, you’ve got to play with them. What happens off the pitch, well, you can’t get on with everyone you work with.

You’re not best friends with someone just because you work with them, but you have to be able to at least work together, or there is no point.

I’ve met lots of footballers like Alan Shearer, David Beckham, and Steven Gerrard. I don’t really get starstruck because I just think they’re another footballer like me; they just get paid a lot more.

I like where I lived in Alnwick; I always tell people about it. There’s so much to do there, even though it’s so small and quaint.

I just don’t have that natural instinct to be able to let my guard down and start speaking to people. I never have – I’ve always been a bit socially awkward, even with people I’ve known for a long time.

If I could, I’d change the way I came up through the football ranks. I’d love to have had an academy life the way the boys have it. I think female footballers would be so much better for having that opportunity, and we’d be more effective because we would be better players.

I’m not scared of snakes, spiders, flying… nothing scares me apart from needles. I just hate them. Which is quite funny because I’ve had four knee operations, and I’ve got tattoos, so I’ve seen a few needles in my time.

I played in the 2015 World Cup. I scored in two games; we got to the semi-finals and eventually ended up getting the bronze medal. That was a big turning point in my career, personally, and for English women’s football, too.

At Sunderland, our kit was five times too big, and we got the local bus to games; in America, I got bags of Nike kit, flew to away games, and played in front of thousands of fans. It opened my eyes to what women’s football could – and should – be.

You cannot win a game of football on your own; it’s about the entire squad working together to achieve something. That’s how football works: it has always been about the group, not the individual.

I remember, when I was at Sunderland, we made the FA Cup final and played in front of 20,000 at Derby.

The one thing in the world that I can’t do without is my glasses. I don’t really care about my laptop, I never answer my phone, and I don’t care about trainers and stuff. But I’m pretty blind without my glasses or contact lenses.

There were three football fields next door to my house. I used to walk down to the boys’ team, but eventually, I was told I was going to have to stop playing because I was a girl.

I made my England debut against Japan in 2013. Hope Powell, our manager at the time, always demanded the best. She had quite a stern approach… She’d look at you over her glasses sometimes.

I think it’s good that the womens’ game is being pushed, and maybe the men can look at our game every now and then and learn something from the way we approach the game.

I was really, really shy. My dad used to drive me for an hour and a half to go training. I used to finish school, jump in the car, come back, and go to bed. I missed out on socialising with my friends when I was a shy child anyway.

I don’t feel like congratulating myself, because I know there’s still a lot of room for improvement.

That’s something I learned at Lyon: how humble and grounded the best players in the world are. They’re always wanting more. At Lyon, they’re winners. At England, it’s the same.

I can’t do tricks, but I absolutely loved trying, and one of my fondest memories growing up was trying to imitate Ronaldinho and do his dance.

I’ve done quite a bit in England. I’ve won the majority of trophies and awards that there is to win, apart from top goalscorer… which is hard as a defender.

It’s probably the wrong way round, I know, but I just love maths and doing equations. When I was a kid, I was really good at it, so when I was seven, I asked my mum what job lets you do maths and pays you for it. She said accountancy, and that was it. I was dead set.

The players in the England team, the majority of us didn’t play more than twice a week until we were 20. The younger girls are training more than that now, so in 10 years’ time, when they take over from us, the quality will be so much higher. That’s what I’d like to see.