Lucy Bronze Credits US College System For Instilling Her With World-Class Mentality

Ahead of playing the United States Women’s National Team at a sold-out Wembley Stadium tomorrow, England’s Lucy Bronze revealed to me she is indebted to the year she spent as a college player at the University of Carolina for turning her into the world-class player she has become.

Voted The Best FIFA Women’s Player in the World in 2020, Bronze is the only English player in history to win three successive Champions League titles and this year also became a European champion at international level, winning the UEFA Women’s Euro with England. Friday’s meeting with the world champion United States team will be the latest opportunity for Lucia Roberta Tough Bronze to prove she lives up to her mother’s maiden name.

It was her mother, Diana Tough, who persuaded the young Bronze to attend summer training camps in North Carolina to further her career. After impressing Anson Dorrance, the Tar Heels soccer coach, Bronze earned herself a scholarship in 2009. Aged just 17, she moved to North Carolina unaware of the legacy the Tar Heels had in college soccer claiming at the time, “I don’t really understand the American system anyway so it’s just another game for me.”

Looking back 13 years later after everything she has achieved in the game, Bronze admitted to me that “I think it had probably one of the biggest influences at an important time in my career. When I was younger, in Europe in general, women’s football wasn’t really a huge spectacle. Whereas in America, obviously everything was amazing.”

“Going out there and playing at college for a year was a dream come true and made me realise that’s really what I wanted to do. Playing with the players there who went on to be so successful at such a young age, at 17, it had a huge influence on me as a player and a person. I think I’ve said it before – their mentality – learning that at 17 years old, I think that’s what has helped me grow my mentality in an England environment.”

Key to her development as a player were Dorrance’s innovative and relentless training methods, one of which was the competitive cauldron where he would pit players against each other. The freshman Bronze would often volunteer to go in against Tobin Heath, a senior and already an Olympic Gold medalist with the senior United States national team in 2008.

As Bronze explained to me, “it was like a one vs one tournament. Tobin was like the best player on the team. I was 17, the youngest player on the team. Tobin, I mean everyone knows what Tobin is like now, but this was over ten years ago. I was testing myself against one of the best players in the world, already at such a young age.”

“It was a good eye-opener to see the standard of what it takes to be at the top. Tobin, at the time had broken into the US team and was kind of the first player that I really played with who was that kind of world-class standard and I got to go head-to-head, literally head-to-head with her in training sessions. I realized that I need to work a lot harder and push myself if I want to compete against those kind of players.”

Now 30, Bronze is still pushing herself. Having achieved everything in the English club game, she has once again moved out of her comfort zone to live abroad and play for FC Barcelona and adapt to their unique possession-based style, commonly known in the game as tiki-taka.

“I think it’s the highest demand I’ve ever had to play for a team because all the players are so intelligent, that’s what they’ve lived and breathed they’re entire life. I’ve played in Lyon but a lot of it was made up of international players whereas the core of Barcelona is the best Spanish players, the Spanish way, the Barça way.”

This time Bronze has made the move together with her England team-mate Keira Walsh. “It’s taken a little bit of adapting to for both myself and Keira, the speed of play is a lot quicker, the thought process is a lot quicker. You’ve almost got to earn their trust a little bit to prove that you’re up to their standard to be able to play the Barça way or they might not pass to you!”

“The girls are really good and they’ve been really patient with the language and the change of style. Both myself and Keira feel like our games are improving from being there and the intensity they play and the style they play is only going to help us and hopefully we can add something to the team as well.”

Their former Manchester City team-mate Caroline Weir has also moved to Spain, joining FC Barcelona’s historical rivals, Real Madrid. Bronze is relishing their first confrontation later this season in the game dubbed as El Clásico. “I’ve not spoken to Caz, I don’t know if Keira has. I think it would be a funnier match-up for Kiera and Caz because they will literally be head-to-head and they are two players at City who probably had the best relationship on the pitch in terms of playing together, so that’ll be a fun game. I know from locker room talk, that it’s a pretty big deal to the Barça girls, so I’m excited for when that match comes around.”

In the meantime, Bronze believes every training session she has had in Barcelona so far has improved her game. “I think even in such a short space of time that both myself and Keira have been at Barça, even coming back to training here with England – I think Sarina mentioned it a little bit in training – we have a little bit of added intensity in defence.”

“The Spanish girls are just so aggressive when they defend which makes them have to play quicker in training so the tiki-taka comes, so I think me and Keira kind of had a look at each other and thought, ‘okay we need to lift the intensity a bit in training and it kind of just clicked and happened and Sarina was like shouting, ‘well done Lucy, well done Keira’.”

“That was something where we were both kind of thinking, okay, this is what we do at Barça let’s add this intensity to England and help push on and keep improving.”