SHE is a Euros winner, who has also won the Champions League on four separate occasions, including the most recent edition. She has claimed WSL titles with Liverpool and Manchester City, twice lifted the FA Cup and was crowned UEFA Women’s Player of the Year in 2019. Back in the day, she even won the Women’s Premier League Northern Division title with Sunderland Ladies.

Lucy Bronze has pretty much done it all, but as she prepares to represent England in Australia and New Zealand over the course of the next month, the Berwick-born 31-year-old finds herself targeting one of the few major honours missing from her CV. If she can help the Lionesses win the World Cup this summer, she will further enhance her status as one of the most decorated female players of all time.

She is already the most successful English player of her generation – male or female – and given that this will be her third World Cup campaign, she is uniquely well-placed to pass judgement on England’s chances of finishing the forthcoming tournament as World champions.

There has been a lot of talk leading up to the tournament about who is missing, with Leah Williamson, Frank Kirby and Beth Mead all unavailable because of injury and Ellen White and Jill Scott having retired, but Bronze feels there should be much more focus on who will be playing for the Lionesses down under.

“We are missing three big names, probably three of the biggest names, but we have excellent players to come in and replace them,” said Bronze. “I’m not worried about it at all. We’ve been playing without Meado and Fran for a long time now. We do have top-level players and experienced players who can come in.

“Then there’s Keira Walsh and Georgia Stanway, who are probably two of our most crucial players and they are coming off the back of unbelievable seasons, probably their best seasons at club level. But they haven’t been spoken about as much because they’ve been playing abroad with Barcelona and Bayern Munich. That gets overlooked.

“The players who are missing have been playing in England and there is obviously a lot of focus on them, but I don’t feel any less confident going into the tournament. We’ve still got key players going who have been in excellent form.”

The Northern Echo: England international Lucy Bronze

For a while, it looked as though Bronze’s name might also have been added to the absentee list as she was forced to undergo knee surgery in April.

Thankfully, it was a relatively minor injury, and the North-Easterner was able to prove her fitness as she returned to action at right-back as Barcelona edged out Wolfsburg in the Champions League final. She also featured in England’s World Cup warm-up games, and is confident of being able to do herself justice at the World Cup, where her presence will be even more important given Wiegman’s need to turn to a number of youngsters in the absence of some of her more established stars.

“Players look towards the older ones and I’m now one of them,” said Bronze, who has more than 100 senior caps to her name. “I’m kind of laid-back and relaxed. They look at me and think it’s going to be okay. If I was maybe to get anxious they’d get worried about it.

“We have players like myself, Millie Bright and Alex (Greenwood) who have been to World Cups and played in the Euros, and we know how to deal with different pressures and adversities on and off the pitch. Maybe the less experienced ones know from that that everything is going to be okay.”

Things have certainly turned out okay for Bronze, who had to make the long journey to train with Blyth Town at the age of 11 because her hometown team, Alnwick Town, had no provision for girls’ football at that age.

“To think it started in a small town like Alnwick, but I’ve been around the world and won the biggest trophies,” she said. “2022 has been the pinnacle of it all so far, but I hope there is more to come yet.

“I think we’re confident going into the World Cup. We know we’re now one of the favourites and we’re not afraid of that. It tells you how far we’ve come as a group.”