Lucy Bronze

Lucia Roberta Tough Bronze, born 28 October 1991, is an English professional footballer who plays as a right-back for Women's Super League club Chelsea and the England women's national team. She has previously played for Sunderland, Everton, Liverpool, Lyon, Manchester City, and Barcelona, as well as North Carolina at college level and Great Britain at the Olympics. Bronze has won five Champions League titles, three with Lyon and two with Barcelona, and four Women's Super League titles with Liverpool, Manchester City, and Chelsea. Internationally, she won both Euro 2022 and Euro 2025 with England.

Bronze was born in Berwick-upon-Tweed to a Portuguese father and an English mother and grew up in the North East of England, living on Lindisfarne, in Belford, and in Alnwick. Raised bilingual in a British-Portuguese household, she began playing football as a child with her brother. She played youth football for Belford, Alnwick Town, Blyth Town WFC, and Sunderland, although Football Association rules prevented her from continuing on boys' teams after turning twelve. She attended The Duchess's Community High School in Alnwick, where she captained the football, tennis, and hockey teams, while also competing in cross country and pentathlon.

At age seventeen in 2009, Bronze moved to the United States to study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and play college soccer for the Tar Heels. She became the first British player to win an NCAA Cup in December 2009 and earned All-American honours. Returning to England in 2010, she transferred to Leeds Metropolitan University, graduating in 2013 with a degree in sports science. During this era, she played senior football for Sunderland, earning Manager's Player of the Year honours for 2007–08, and later joined Everton in 2010, where she played in the Women's Super League while recovering from a major knee injury.

Bronze signed with Liverpool in November 2012, helping the club win back-to-back Women's Super League titles in 2013 and 2014, and earning the PFA Women's Players' Player of the Year award in 2014. She transferred to Manchester City in November 2014, contributing to a second-place finish in 2015, an unbeaten league season in 2016, and an FA WSL Cup victory where she scored the winning goal. She was named FA WSL 1 Players' Player of the Year in 2016 and helped Manchester City reach the semi-finals of the 2016–17 UEFA Women's Champions League.

Internationally, Bronze represented England from the under-17 level before joining the senior national team, featuring at every major tournament starting with Euro 2013 and first captaining the side in 2018. She was named to the All-Star Squad at the 2015 World Cup as England placed third, and won the Silver Ball at the 2019 World Cup in France, where England finished fourth. She was also selected for the All-Star Squads at Euro 2017 and the 2019 World Cup.

Bronze was named PFA Women's Players' Player of the Year twice, in 2014 and 2017, and won the BBC Women's Footballer of the Year award in 2018 and 2020. In 2019, she became the first English player to win the UEFA Women's Player of the Year Award and received the inaugural Globe Soccer Award for Women's Best Player. In December 2020, she was named The Best FIFA Women's Player.