From World Cup to Ibiza pool party for Bronze
5 Lucy Bronze
What do footballer Lucy Bronze and the five members of One Direction have in common? People have climbed walls to see them, literally, after stealing glimpses of them in VIP areas in Ibiza.
The difference is that Bronze – and her England team-mates Carly Telford, Leah Williamson and Keira Walsh – were not there on a celebrity appearance, but had paid to be behind the raised stage at the pool party. Williamson first noticed a group surreptitiously taking photographs of Bronze while she lay on a sun lounger. The group moved back to the VIP area.
“And this girl basically climbed up the wall to get in,” Bronze says, “and was, like, ‘Oh, my God – you’re Lucy Bronze! Can I stay in the VIP bit with you?’ I was like, ‘I’ve paid to be in here – everyone has’.”
“‘No, you haven’t – you’re Lucy Bronze! They’ve just let you in! You can do what you want!’ I was like, ‘No – honestly. We’re not here on an appearance. We’re here on holiday. The people at the place will say you can’t be in here because you don’t have the wristband.’ She’s like, ‘Come on – I’m with the Lionesses!’ I’m OK with it. I don’t find it intimidating at all. I feel like I’m constantly going at the same speed as women’s football, so I never really feel that shock of, suddenly, I’m a somebody.”
That aside, the last calendar year has been business as usual for Bronze: another Women’s Champions League, second place in the Women’s Ballon D’or. Short of winning the Champions League with an English club, the Lyon defender has achieved just about all there is to achieve at club level.
Bronze insists that she will always reflect on 2019 as a disappointing year given how close – yet how far – England were to winning the World Cup. During the tournament, Bronze, 28, served up her finest individual performance for her country, against Norway, spending the night in a flurry of slaloming runs to exert the kind of dominance most players can only dream of.
She is, without doubt, the best right-back in the women’s game. Beyond the on-field accolades, there is only one question, really, that remains of Bronze: how long before she eclipses former Arsenal forward Kelly Smith and is considered the finest and most complete female footballer this country has ever produced?