Barcelona’s Lucy Bronze Believes She Is Better Suited To Playing Abroad

A representative of EE Hope United, a campaign tackling online sexist abuse, Lucy Bronze, the only English player in history to start in teams which have won European titles at club and international level, feels she is better suited to playing abroad after signing for Spanish champions FC Barcelona.

Following three successful seasons at Olympique Lyonnias in which she won the UEFA Women’s Champions League each time, Bronze returned to Manchester City in 2020 but at the end of her two-year contract this summer, she shocked the soccer world by joining the Catalan club in July.

After winning the UEFA Women’s Euro this summer, Bronze, alongside England team-mates Alex Greenwood and Nikita Parris, became a European champion at club and international level, but only Bronze started in both finals. If she can also win the Champions League with FC Barcelona, she will join Jimmy Rimmer and Owen Hargreaves as the only English players to win the title with different clubs.

Speaking during the current international break, she told me it was “so far, so good. I’m loving the training, where I live and the weather and the fans. . . the fans are just amazing, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. So yeah, I’m just really enjoying the experience so far. These Spanish Barça players are just so intelligent. they do see the game a little bit differently. Their style’s a little bit different to what I’m used to. A bit of a mixture of how we did play in France, but I guess an extra level up in terms of the intensity and intelligence of the football.”

Bronze admits returning to the Women’s Super League during the Covid pandemic didn’t work out how she had imagined and she required a new challenge to stimulate her career. “I think the past two years in England, I didn’t really enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I absolutely loved my time in France, it was the best thing I ever did. I have to say, I just enjoy playing abroad. I think that’s just me as a person. Some people enjoy home comforts. I think I’m the complete opposite!”

“So yeah, the new challenge at Barça, one of the best teams in the world, is exactly what I needed. Their style of play is a style that can help me improve. Learning those little Spanish touches and little turns can hopefully help me improve my game in a great city, for a great club. I think it is a really good time for me to make the move. There’s not many people that can get to say they played for Barcelona.”

Renowned as an attacking right back, at Barcelona, Bronze will play behind Caroline Graham Hansen, one of the best right wingers in the world but playing in the fluid Barça system Bronze has no fears the players will cramp each other’s game. “I think the way that Barça want to play, everybody takes up each other’s spaces all the time. (The coach) just said to me to ‘be free’ to go and find spaces where I can, whether it’s behind Caro or by the side or her. It’s just getting to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and how we can add to each other. Obviously Hansen is a world-class player and it’s not too difficult to play with world-class players.”

After playing at Camp Nou in front of two world record attendances last season, the head of the women’s football department at FC Barcelona, Xavier Puig, said it was the intention of the the club to play all their UEFA Women’s Champions League games this season at the 99,354-capacity venue. Bronze will become only the second English player after Gary Lineker to represent FC Barcelona at the largest stadium in Europe and after visiting the arena for her official presentation, she can’t wait to play there. “To actually stand in the middle of the pitch and see the height of it was incredible. Yeah, a real special place.”

Bronze was speaking to me in her role as an representative for EE Hope United, who launched a new campaign this summer aiming to tackle online sexist abuse aimed at female players and fans during the UEFA Women’s Euro. Research by Cardiff University’s HateLab undertaken during the tournament revealed that 23 of the 25 players in the England squad over the summer were tagged in what were classified as hate messages during the tournament.

The overwhelming majority of these abusive comments (96%) were misogynistic, with the remaining 4% deemed homophobic. According to Matthew Williams, Professor of Criminology at Cardiff University, these included “attempts to scorn the success of women’s football, players being told in some of the less offensive posts to ‘get back to the kitchen’ or to ‘make a sandwich’ and suggestions women should not be playing football. There were also grossly offensive posts that made sexual references. It is surprising that most of these posts remain live on the platforms.”

97% of the hateful comments were posted on Twitter with 61% of those originating from identifiable male accounts, ten times as many as that from women, with a third unable to be classified. Player of the Tournament Beth Mead received the most of these ahead of Ellen White and Ella Toone with Bronze fourth.

Bronze revealed to me she has had a love-hate relationship with social media. “A couple of years ago, I completely went off it because I hated it. I guess it was when I was kind of coming up, when my career was on the rise. As much as you feel the love, the more that people see you, it opens you up to more criticism as well.”

The players of Hope United have featured in a series of video content teaching people how to block accounts, report online hate, mute and filter offensive content and how to diversify their social media feed by following more female voices, skills which have helped Bronze in her own life. “I have been learning off them as well. They give us information as individual players on how to deal with it. Not in terms of the psychology but in terms of the reporting. It’s something that I was never really made aware of.”

“You report the comments. You get rid of them rather than just engaging them and instead of giving them the voice they’re trying to get, you do the complete opposite. I want to read the comments, I want to read what the fans have to say, I want to connect with the supporters. They’ve spent their time and effort to come and watch you play, and support you and make a difference in your life and your career. You want to give something back.”

Since the tournament, the increased press attention on the players has manifested itself in many ways. The fact that an English tabloid chose to publish photos of one of the players on holiday was one of the more unwelcome intrusion into their private lives. Bronze tells me nothing could have prepared the players for the explosion in interest they have received. “I think we spoke a lot about it, but you never really know what you’re preparing for until it happens to you. It was annoying. I know Alessia (Russo) got followed on holiday as well, which was with her family. I like to think their privacy wasn’t being invaded but we’ve got such a good, strong team working around us that if there was any problems, we could all support it and get it sorted.”

The study of 78,141 posts on Twitter, Reddit and 4Chan during a thirteen-week period from May 2 to August 1 identified more than 50,000 positive messages illustrating that ‘hope’ outweighs ‘hate’ on social media platforms by 125 to 1, something that Bronze now prefers to focus on.

“I’m very lucky that I’ve got people around me like family and friends, agents and people that I work with who send me and share with me all the positive things that I do have on social media so I still get to connect and reply to these messages. I’ve had to find a way to make social media work for me but it’s something that I’m working on.”

EE Hope United will rally the UK to tackle online sexist hate as part of EE’s commitment to digitally upskill the nation. Visit ee.co.uk/hopeunited