It is rare that the transfer of a woman footballer makes a splash. Before Euro 2017 Toni Duggan’s switch from Manchester City to Barcelona did just that. Duggan graced the front pages of most national newspapers gripping the iconic Blaugrana shirt and featured in Sky Sports’ rolling news throughout the day. Perhaps the fuss was because she was the first English player to sign for Barcelona since Gary Lineker or maybe because of how global a club they are. Either way the England striker’s move generated off-season excitement not seen before.
On 18 August another England player announced she was departing these shores. The right-back Lucy Bronze has also left the WSL 2016 champions but to much less fanfare and fewer column inches. Yet this move is much bigger than Duggan’s. In fact it is the biggest by an English player. Bronze has joined Lyon and although the French club may not seem as impressive as Barça, in women’s football at present there is none bigger.
Bronze shone at Euro 2017 as she did at the 2015 World Cup in Canada. Few international full-backs can match her impressive return of five goals in 48 games. The morning after her unveiling, in a deal where the Germany forward Pauline Bremer moved the opposite way and after Bronze had spent a week in France’s second-largest city, we spoke about her move.
“I just want to challenge myself all the time,” Bronze said. “I stay somewhere for a couple of years and then think: ‘What next?’ I find it easier to challenge myself by going to different clubs, environments and playing with different players. Going to a new country and league is what I think I need right now.
“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,” Bronze said with a laugh. “Having the opportunity to go to the best team in Europe, the best team in the world in my eyes, is an opportunity that I don’t think I could have turned down and I would have probably regretted turning it down.”
The timing is also particularly good for Bronze. Women’s football in France is increasingly competitive, despite her new club’s domestic dominance, with PSG meeting Lyon in the Champions League final. “I’ll be there for the next two to three years. In two years’ time the World Cup is in France and the World Cup final will be played in Lyon. It’s the right time to go there.”
Her motivation is obvious: “I want to win the Champions League.” While, at 25, she may seem in a hurry, especially as there can be no doubt City will be challenging for that trophy in the not too distant future, injuries have meant she feels the need to make the most of her peak years. With this her fifth move in a 10-year senior career she is showing no absence of hunger. “People might think I’m young. I do think that City have the potential to get there but unfortunately I’ve had a few injury setbacks getting to where I am now, which may have shortened my career a bit. So for me I need to take opportunities now to do things that some people wait their whole career to do.”
It is not her first stint abroad. Like many of her generation Bronze headed stateside at 17 and she hopes her present experience will be as beneficial as her time in the US. “I played with most of the players that now make up the US women’s team and I think that experience was a huge stepping stone in my career.”In France she will be playing alongside a fresh crop of players who similarly fill out their national squads. “I’m playing in a team where the majority get picked for world XIs and many get world player of the year-type awards. These are the players that we [England] are playing in big tournaments and wanting to match up against, and I’ll now be training and learning from them every day.”
With whom is Bronze most looking forward to linking up? Not BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year Ada Hegerberg, France’s Eugénie Le Sommer or Germany’s midfield maestro Dzsenifer Marozsan. “Wendie Renard,” she said. “I think a lot of people would think of their attackers. Obviously playing against them is what I do and that will be great in training. But I’m intrigued to see what Renard’s like. She’s captain, she’s captain of a very talented French team. I want to see what her character and leadership is like, as well as learn from her as a defender. She’s a player that gets mentioned numerous times when you talk about the best players in the world, the best defenders in the world.” That is a category Bronze is often put in and this year she has been nominated for European and world player of the year awards having proved herself again on the international stage and helped City go unbeaten in the 2016 season conceding only four goals on the way to the club’s first WSL title.
“I think the European teams have probably overtaken the US in terms of competitiveness and quality now,” Bronze said. “Most European leagues are growing, the Women’s Super League is going from strength to strength every year and I think the success and growth of the England team has meant that a lot of other leagues are looking at, and wanting to sign, English players.
“The WSL may be losing homegrown players but they’re also gaining foreign players. England will benefit from players going to European sides.
“Toni is going to be with a lot of the Spanish players,” as well as others such as the Euro 2017 Player of the Tournament, Lieke Martens, and, “although Spain didn’t have a fantastic competition, they played some good football and have a different style of play. Toni’s told me that, as I am, she’s looking forward to a new challenge and a change from playing against a lot of players we have our whole lives.”
It may seem obvious the England squad will feel disappointed about their Euro 2017 adventure but Bronze, like many of the team, is philosophical about what they achieved and where they can go next. “We’ve always been behind Germany and France but we’ve beaten both teams for the first time in our history within the last two and a half years. England have grown – the domestic league is the same.
“We made strides forward in the Netherlands, beating France and winning all our group games, but ultimately we failed in one of the most important games. After reflecting on it, although a similar situation to Canada, the atmosphere against Holland was different and that played a big part. The first 20 minutes determined the whole game and when the Netherlands got their early goal you could feel a big change in the momentum. We weren’t ever able to get out of the rut of going 1-0 down. That’s something I’m sure we’ll work on and take into future tournaments but I think going 1-0 down early on to the home nation was too much.”
The FA has announced it will bid to host Euro 2021 and the England players have seen for themselves how powerful a home tournament can be. “The crowd was unbelievable – on the bus on the way to the stadium there was just a sea of orange,” Bronze said. “The fans really bought into the team and that was a huge factor in their success from the knockout stages all the way through to the final.”
With Bronze having plenty of football left in her and a big portion of the squad yet to hit their peak, a home tournament is highly attractive. “The fanbase in England is always growing. We had a couple of thousand at every game in the Netherlands, which is phenomenal for an away team. You see some men’s championship teams not get as many away fans. I’m guessing a lot of fans will be desperate for us to host a tournament.”
For now Bronze’s focus is on the Division 1 Féminine season which gets under way on Sunday when Lyon face Rodez, who finished eighth (in the 12-team league) last season. She says she learnt a lot from watching her new team in the Toulouse Cup, a pre‑season tournament involving Liverpool, Manchester City, Lyon and Montpellier.
“I didn’t get to play because I have to do fitness tests this week but it was good to see how things work, be around the girls a bit more and get to know everyone a bit better. I watched City v Montpellier as well as the Lyon games and the way the French teams use the ball is pretty nice to watch.”
City recorded a surprise win over Lyon in their final pre-season friendly, with Bremer the difference after two goals from Camile Abily cancelled out Izzy Christiansen’s double. “It was a good result for City and good for them to have won their last pre-season game,” said Bronze. “It will give them confidence. But if you had watched the game and not seen the score you wouldn’t have believed the result. The woodwork did a lot of work for City at the weekend. They played well and defended well but had only four shots on target. They scored three of them so were very clinical but it’s a pre-season friendly so I’m not too worried from a Lyon point of view.”
Bronze is hopeful of making the team for Sunday’s game against a side who endured the biggest defeat last season – 10-0 against Juvisy.
“If all goes well this week, I do well in my fitness tests and get a few more training sessions under my belt, then I think the plan is that I’ll get some minutes on Sunday. I don’t know whether I’ll be starting, coming off the bench, or how long I might get, because the language barrier is a bit of a problem when it comes to finding things out.”
She may have the “nervous” task of learning French – and is planning on French lessons three times a week to pick up quickly a language she was not great at in school. “If you had told me a year ago that I’d be signing for Lyon I would have laughed and said ‘not a chance’. Even five years ago if you had said I’d be starting in the European Championship and would play in a World Cup I’d have probably laughed at that too. The way things have changed has been phenomenal.
“Football is something I would never give up on, whether I ended up playing professional or in a Sunday league team. My injuries have been rough. There was a time when I was out for a whole year. I didn’t complete a full 90 minutes for nearly two years.”
Now she is making the biggest move by an English female footballer.
Talking points
• The statement signings Toni Duggan and Lieke Martens watched from the stands as Barcelona beat RCD Espanyol to lift the Copa Cataluña for the fourth consecutive year. The Danish Euro 2017 finalist Sanne Troelsgaard Nielsen scored the only goal in FC Rosengard’s 1-0 Swedish Cup win over Linkopings.
• Lieke Martens was crowned Uefa Women’s Player of the Year in Monaco on Thursday. The award follows her Player of the Tournament prize after Holland’s Euro 2017 win. Martens also helped her former club, FC Rosengard, to the Champions League quarter-finals.
• Juventus won their first competitive game 13-0 against Torino in the first round of the Coppa Italia, with the second leg to come. The Bianconeri were 5-0 up at the break thanks, in part, to a Simona Sodini hat-trick.
• Montpellier won the first Toulouse Cup friendly tournament as the English and French league seasons approach. A late goal from Pauline Bremer against her former team helped Manchester City defeat Lyon 3-2 in Toulouse. City had lost 4-2 to Montpellier in their opening game, a Jane Ross double salvaging a more respectable scoreline for them after they went 4-0 down. Liverpool fared less well, failing to score a goal as a 3-0 loss to Montpellier followed a 6-0 defeat by Lyon, in which Ada Hegerberg and France’s Eugénie Le Sommer grabbed two goals each.
In other friendly news Arsenal’s recruit Beth Mead scored in a 1-1 draw with PSG, Marie-Laure Delie pulling the French club level late on. Chelsea followed their 3-1 defeat by the Bundesliga champions, Wolfsburg, (Fran Kirby with the Blues’ only goal) with a 3-0 loss to Bayern Munich.
• Scotland’s Gemma Fay has announced her retirement from international football. The 35-year-old goalkeeper, who captained the side in their first major tournament at Euro 2017, has a record 203 caps and plays with Stjarnan in Iceland. Glasgow City’s Leanne Ross and the Vittsjo defender Ifeoma Dieke have also said they will no longer be seeking international selection. Germany’s Anja Mittag also announced her retirement from international football. The striker has scored 50 goals in 158 games and was a member of the teams that won the European Championship in 2005, 2009 and 2013, the World Cup in 2007 and gold at the 2016 Olympics. After winning the double with Wolfsburg she has signed a two-year contract with FC Rosengard, whom she played with between 2012 and 2015.
