Barcelona and England defender Lucy Bronze says women’s international football is no longer just about the United States women’s national team ahead of next summer’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
The USWNT have won the World Cup four times since 1991, including the last two, in France in 2019 and in Canada four years earlier.
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However, the gap between the U.S. and the rest has closed, in part because of the investment in the women’s game by some of Europe’s top clubs, and Vlatko Andonovski’s side lost friendlies against European champions England and Spain during the October international break.
“Women’s football now is in a different place, it’s not just one team,” Bronze told ESPN when asked about the significance of those defeats for the USWNT.
“[The USWNT] are going through a bit of a change at the minute and they also had a lot of players injured who did not play against England or Spain. But the thing with the U.S. is you can never rule them out. They have that mentality they have developed over a number of years that the likes of England and Germany probably have not had for as long.
“So they have a wealth of experience and they know how to win. They are always going to be up there, but I think there will be many countries backing themselves, thinking they have a good chance. Germany, England… a lot of European teams will be thinking they have a chance.
“Canada [winning] the Olympics, Australia with the home support like England and Netherlands in the last two Euros. So there are plenty of teams in the running, but [England] will just be focused on what we are going to do, what we can achieve. We won the Euros, we have many things we can still improve on. If we can do that, we have a good chance at the World Cup.”
