All eyes will be on Lucy Bronze as she wins her 100th cap for England when they face the Czech Republic tonight.
Bronze, 30, will become the 13th Englishwoman to reach the landmark, nine years after making her debut against Japan.
Named the FIFA best women’s player in 2020, the full-back is considered one of the game’s top defenders and was a key part of the Euro 2022 winning side.
But she revealed that injuries meant she was once told she would never play for this long — and proving people wrong has been one of her main motivations.
Bronze said: “I was told at 20 years old that I wouldn’t play past 27, and I’m 30 so I’m not doing too bad.
“I think that’s why I never set 100 caps as a goal for England.
“I just wanted to play as much as possible. I guess I’ve just had to work hard on being focused, doing everything right and just hope for the best.
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“Obviously I’ve had a pretty successful career doing the things that I’ve done and my knee injuries haven’t held me back too much.
“I guess it’s just part and parcel of the game, injuries. It happens to all the best players and all the players that play.
“It happened to England — you get struck down with injuries, it’s just part and parcel of it and how you overcome it and how you use it as motivation I suppose.”
The Berwick-born Barcelona star revealed she is not that sentimental and probably will not realise the magnitude of what she has achieved until her playing days are behind her.
She added: “It is obviously a huge achievement, but again I think it is like any achievement I’ve had in my career, and I’ll look back on when I’m retired and think, ‘Oh, that was amazing’.
“Once I’ve got 100, I’ll want 101, 102 and just keeping going. It’ll be a nice occasion and a nice landmark to have hit, but it’s not something that when I started playing for England I had that goal of 100 caps.
“To have made it is pretty incredible, I think I am the first and only one from my generation so that is pretty special for me.”
After Friday’s victory over the No1 ranked USA, Sarina Wiegman’s side welcome the Czechs to Brighton looking to extend their unbeaten run under the Dutchwoman to 24 games.
The visitors are ranked 28th in the world and while recent results have been mixed, a draw with the US in February shows they will be no pushovers.
For Wiegman, focus remains firmly on the World Cup in Australia as she shrugged off suggestions the Lionesses are the best team in the world.
She said: “You are the best team in the world when you have won the World Cup, we didn’t.
“We have 10 months to go, we are in a good place I think we are improving and we have to do to that to do really good at the World Cup.
“We are improving our game all the time, I think we built some confidence at the Euros too.
“It helps too when you beat the USA, we saw some good things but we also saw some things we have to improve, which is very exciting too.”
