When Lucy Bronze moved from Manchester City to the European champions, Lyon, last summer she said she wanted to win the Champions League. Fittingly the England defender’s goal separated her new and former clubs in April’s semi-final. On Thursday Bronze hopes to complete the job against Wolfsburg.
“It was kind of written in the stars that it had to be me that scored the winning goal,” Bronze said as she prepared for the final here. “I think we could have had a few more but obviously I’m happy we won the game. We’re in the final and that’s why I came to Lyon.”
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Bronze was this week named as the BBC women’s footballer of the year, the first defender and first England player to win the award, but her move to the four-times Champions League winners took some getting used to. “At first it was a little bit intimidating meeting everyone. Everyone is a world-class player, in every single position, and I was scared to give the ball away – I still am now,” she says, laughing. “I’m scared to make a bad pass or put in a bad cross, but it’s good, though. It’s pushing me. The reason I came to Lyon was to play with these players. I knew they could make me better because they are at such a good level.”
There is a reason why Bronze has gone from being considered the world’s best right-back to the world’s best defender, yet she is modest about her ability compared with that of her team-mates: “Some of them have a ridiculous amount of football talent. I don’t think I’ll ever hit their level but I’ve learnt a lot from them and they’ve helped improve the parts of my game I came here to improve.
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“I’ve fed off them and they’ve fed off me. I’m really athletic and they appreciate that a bit more; it’s been really good for all.”
Bronze has also found the different style of coaching in France has challenged her. “In England it’s very tactical. When I think about my time at Man City or with England, you go through so much detail.
“ That can be really good but sometimes you lose your fluidity and spontaneity. France is completely different. You don’t really have a lot of detail.
“I don’t know if that’s because we’ve got all the best players so everyone kind of knows what they should be doing, but it’s all about playing with each other and working off each other.
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“The coach just keeps telling us to play, play and move, pass and move, play off each other, work off each and that’s completely at the other end of the spectrum to what I’m used to. Maybe somewhere in between would be good, but it’s great that I get the balance of a lot of coaching with England when I’m with the national team and when I’m at Lyon I’m working on being a bit more impulsive.”
Lyon have secured the league title and, if they win the Champions League and their Coupe de France final against their nearest rivals Paris St-Germain, they will complete a second successive treble.
Wolfsburg, having won the league and cup double in Germany, are hoping for a treble of their own. Bronze sees Wolfsburg’s attacking play as the greatest threat. “They’ve got world-class players all over the pitch but Pernille Harder is their key player. She’s an attacking player, she links everything up, she creates goals, she scores goals.
“You look at the number of goals Wolfsburg scored against Chelsea [five in their two-legged semi-final] and you’ve got to say their attack is doing their job and is their biggest threat.”
Bronze, though, is unconcerned. “Every single day morocco world cup 2018 kit we have to train against the best forwards in the world: [Eugénie] Le Sommer, [Camille] Abily, [Dzsenifer] Marozsán. So I like to think whoever we face isn’t going to be much better or too different from what we face in training every day and that we’re well prepared to combat anything Wolfsburg have to offer.”
Unusually the final will come with less pressure for Bronze than the semi-final against City. “The first leg was a strange moment – going back to my old team and playing such a big game, having stated the reason I came to Lyon was for the Champions League. I felt more pressure in that game than I’ve felt in any game in my life because of the situation.”
Wolfsburg had to go through extra time and penalties against Bayern Munich to lift the DFB Pokal on Saturday, not ideal preparation. Although Lyon dropped their first points of the season when drawing 0-0 with PSG last Friday, Bronze thinks that was the perfect preparation. “We dominated the game and had all the chances – I think they maybe had one or two chances in the second half.
“We know that nine times out of 10 we win that game. It’s not the end of the world and it’s good preparation and motivation for the final. We’ve basically just played a replay of last year’s Champions League final – there’s no better preparation. We drew, so we know now we need to be a bit better and not be complacent.”
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