England’s Lucy Bronze, winner of the Uefa women’s player of the year award, has added technique to her work rate to stand head and shoulders above her peers

Is Lucy Bronze the best player in Europe? She would say ‘No’. In fact she described it as “embarrassing”, with a laugh, that she should be picking up the Uefa women’s player of the year award ahead of players such as her Lyon roommate Dzsenifer Marozsán, whom she credits as being a big influence on her play.

She also praises her predecessor as England’s right-back, Alex Scott, alongside the move to Lyon, as key to reaching the award-winning level to which she is not accustomed. “She is someone I fought hard with to get my spot in the team, which pushed me to be a better player,” she said, shifting the focus from herself.

“I’m not striving to win personal awards, I’m not striving to be the best player in Europe, I just want to win things for England and Lyon … Being the first English player to win the European award is more special than it actually being me, because it shows English football is growing and getting better and people are thinking of us.”

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That is Bronze: sometimes frustratingly humble, keen to avoid attention, but more aware than ever of what being at the biggest club in women’s football and a talisman of the Lionesses means; that she has a responsibility to get used to the cameras and microphones.

There may have been frustration that, not for the first time but hopefully for the last, the ceremony to hand out Europe’s premier individual prizes clashed with the women’s international calendar. Bronze, on her first appearance since winning an award for her outstanding performances at right-back, was again tested in midfield by Phil Neville in the friendly in Belgium.

She laughed when asked whether she was still a defender. “I’m a footballer,” Bronze said, adding that she enjoyed the experimenting but was a “full-back through and through”.

If anything, she seemed almost relieved to be under the floodlights in the Stadion Den Dreef rather than in the spotlight in Monaco. A slight awkwardness off the pitch, a relic of a shyness growing up that threatened to hold her back, vanishes on it.

“I prefer to be on a pitch playing football than at an awards ceremony anyway so it’s fine,” she said. “I texted Phil and said: ‘Do you think I can go to the awards ceremony?’ He said: ‘Luce, we’ve got a game’ and I was like: ‘Yep, say no more.’”

Her mum was keen to step in. “She asked: ‘Do you need me to go and collect the award?’ And I said: ‘No, I’ve got it’ and she was like: ‘Are you sure? Because I really want to go and meet Cristiano Ronaldo.’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bronze with the Uefa Women’s Player of the Year award. Photograph: Lynne Cameron for The FA/REX/Shutterstock

“My mum speaks Portuguese too, she was like: ‘I can go and speak with him,” Bronze says, grinning.

Bronze may think she is not deserving of the title of Europe’s best. The panel of judges disagreed, scoring her 32 and 44 points higher than her Lyon teammates Ada Hegerberg and Amandine Henry respectively.

What has always marked out Bronze is a relentless, breathless work rate, a physicality that makes her fast and powerful. Now that is coupled with a mean final ball and an increasing positional awareness that means her powerful bursts inside, or into the box, no longer leave gaping holes behind her.

Her on-pitch relationships are seemingly instinctive. Whether at the back with Steph Houghton or Griedge Mbock, in the middle with the players such as Jill Scott, Henry and Marozsan, or almost spoon-feeding Hegerberg, Ellen White and Nikita Parris, she has a fine understanding of the movements around her. With Hegerberg taking the Champions League final plaudits for her stunning 16-minute hat-trick, Bronze – like much of the Lyon team – was brutally efficient in the background. Her wonderful ball between the lines split Barcelona for Hegerberg’s first goal and an inch-perfect cross set up the Norwegian to poke home her third.

In the group stage of the World Cup, particularly against Scotland, Bronze wore well the mantle of being, arguably, England’s most valuable player. In the team’s most complete performance, against Norway in the quarter-finals, she capped an equally complete individual showing with a stunning goal from Beth Mead’s corner.

Hegerberg missed the World Cup, admirably on a point of principle, while Henry stuttered, struggling with a knock. Marozsan spent the year battling injury and illness, and Pernille Harder, last year’s winner of the Uefa award, failed to qualify for the World Cup with Denmark. In other circumstances Bronze might have been bumped, but awards are not given to players who have had bad luck.

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Bronze may not have the flair or goalscoring prowess of these players but she offers more in other areas. Houghton said it was “the way she takes games by the scruff of the neck, her energy – physically nobody can ever match her; that’s in the world probably, never mind Europe”.

Georgia Stanway described Bronze as having “the legs to do whatever she wants”. It is hard to disagree.