England star confident of World Cup final place after knocking out Super Falcons and Colombia

England Women defender Lucy Bronze | Imago

England star confident of World Cup final place after knocking out Super Falcons and Colombia

Ayoola Kelechi 07:22 - 14.08.2023

English full-back Fall Lucy Bronze believes that reaching the final of the World Cup is within the Lionesses reach

Lionesses veteran full-back Lucy Bronze has talked up England’s chances of progressing into the final of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup by beating co-hosts Australia

England reached the semifinals the hard way

England has already endured tough encounters in the Round of 16 against Nigeria’s Super Falcons and Colombia’s Powerpuff Girls in the quarterfinals, and Bronze is convinced that England can roll up their sleeves in their semifinals against one of the co-hosts, Australia to reach a fist ever World Cup final. 

England Barcelona's Lucy Bronze during the quartefinal | fixture
England Barcelona's Lucy Bronze during the quartefinal | fixture

The Barcelona full-back said, 'We got past that hurdle last year in the Euros and finally made it to the final and got past that dreaded always getting beaten in the semi-finals so we've got that in the locker.

“If we hadn't have gotten to the semi-final, I would have said that we would have underperformed.

"Our performances haven't been our best, granted, but the results have been there, and we've got the semi-final which is what this England team is known for doing.” 

England seeking first World Cup final

The former Lyon defender was also keen to point out the differences between previous editions of the FIFA World Cup and this year's edition, saying, "It [this tournament] very much reminds me of 2015 - having to fight in every single game.

var widgetLoaderConfig = widgetLoaderConfig || { CDN_URL: 'https://widgets.sportal365.com', APP_LINK: 'desktop', API_URL: 'https://africa.football.api.sportal365.com/', API_KEY: '2f852b4de2f3a5cf3188e74b33087bb4:2c18422f8e826a7d11aeed52edb2449e', LANG: 'en', REQUEST_INTERVAL: 30, ENABLE_BET_SLIP: false, AUTHOR: false, THEME: "light", TOURNAMENT_ORDER: "pulse_nigeria", LINK_OPTIONS_V2: { 'player' : { 'url': '/football/player/{playerId}' }, 'team' : { 'url': '/football/{teamId}' }, 'tournament': { 'url': '/football/competition/{tournamentId}' }, 'match': { 'url' : '/football/match/{matchId}', 'sort': { 'criteria': 'alphabetically', 'direction': 'asc' } }, 'configuration': { 'newWindow': false }, 'standings_tournament': { 'url': '/football/competition/{tournamentId}/standings' } } }; if (!document.querySelector('script[src="https://widgets.sportal365.com/loader.bundle.min.js"]')) { window.setTimeout(function () { let scriptCss = document.createElement('link'); scriptCss.href = 'https://www.pulsesports.ng/css/sport-widgets.css?v=1668785443'; scriptCss.rel = 'stylesheet'; scriptCss.type = 'text/css'; document.body.appendChild(scriptCss); let scriptTag = document.createElement('script'); scriptTag.src = 'https://widgets.sportal365.com/loader.bundle.min.js'; scriptTag.defer = true; scriptTag.onload = function () { window.setTimeout(function () { new SMPWidgetsLoader(widgetLoaderConfig); }, 200); }; document.head.appendChild(scriptTag); }, 0); } else { new SMPWidgetsLoader(widgetLoaderConfig); }

"I think the difference with this team - we have won trophies, we have won tournaments so we do know what to do. We knew coming into the tournament that it wasn't going to be easy.

"There was a lot of outside noise about whether England was going to be able to cope well with everything thrown at us so far, and the semi-final is what is expected of us as the England team.

Bronze and the Lionesses will rekindle an old rivalry with Australia in the semifinal for a place in the final of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.