England begin their European Championships title defence against France on Saturday and Lucy Bronze knows full whell what it’s like to beat these opponents at the Euros
Lucy Bronze is the only member of England’s Euro 2025 squad who started the Lionesses famous victory over France in 2017. However, the experienced defender still goes into Saturday’s game knowing the opposition can’t be underestimated.
That win, during Euro 2017, was the first time England had beaten France in more than 40 years. There have been two more wins since, most recently in qualifying for this year’s Euros, but that recent double header – a home defeat and away victory – isn’t weighing too heavily on Bronze’s mind.
“I think we use the experience of knowing we can compete against them, but to be honest we haven’t watched videos back from that game – it’s been more from recent games,” the 33-year-old said. “I think a lot of our players have improved a lot as well since 12 months ago.
“You think of the younger players especially, or people like Lauren James who has maybe missed a couple of games through injury. So yeah, we put that to the back of our mind, knowing that we can beat France.
“I was part of the England team that was the first team to beat France in so many years, and that was a while ago, now we just look at the team as another team we need to beat, analyse them as we would any other team whether we’d played them two weeks ago or two years ago. It’s another team that, if we play at our best, we can win.”
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Alex Greenwood is the other survivor from that 2017 squad, though she was on the bench for the game, while the Lionesses might have expected to be able to call upon another starter from the game – Millie Bright – before the centre-back’s late withdrawal. They’re not the only ones without an experienced centre-back, though – France have left Wendie Renard at home, and Bronze appears sad to see her former Lyon team-mate miss out.
“For me, taking someone like that could weaken the French team. I want to play against the strongest French team,” Bronze adds. I want Wendie to be playing, defending corners and I can jump over and hit the ball. Winning a header over Wendie Renard, that’s an achievement.
“You don’t know if it is going to make them better or worse. I have no idea. I would rather she were here just because I think it would have been good for the game and good for the French team.
“I don’t know whether it makes a difference to the English team but I would have loved her to be on the pitch on Saturday and playing against her. I would have rather had that.”
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