Lucy Bronze has become the first England player to win the BBC women’s footballer of the year award, with Holland’s Euro 2017 winner Lieke Martens and the Australian forward Sam Kerr finishing second and third respectively.

Lyon right-back Bronze takes the honour after a stellar 12 months for her country and club, whom she joined last summer from Manchester City. The award, voted for by supporters around the world, was won last year by the Norway striker Ada Hegerberg, who also plays for Lyon.

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“I really didn’t think I was going to win. It’s definitely special to know that fans and people are behind me,” Bronze said. “[I’m] grateful to win the award, I was very grateful even to be nominated. The people who have been nominated alongside me are really great players and had really great years so it’s really special to have won it this year.”

Australian Kerr has had mixed international recognition of late, after being left out of the Fifpro world XI in March – voted on by fellow footballers – while she was also omitted from the final three in last year’s Fifa world player of the year award. However, in 2017 she won the Asian Football Confederation women’s player of the year and was named in the International Federation of Football History world XI.

She was named Young Australian of the Year in 2018 and ABC Sports Personality of the Year in 2017 and the striker had a stellar 2017 as top scorer in the competitive National Women’s Soccer League in the United States (17 goals), when she surpassed the league’s all-time leading scorer with 43 goals. She was also Australia’s top scorer in their victorious Tournament of Nations campaign, a moment she names as her highlight of her last 12 months.

“I came in and I’d been scoring for my club, but I hadn’t really started scoring for my national team,” she told the BBC. “That tournament just assured me that I can do it at any level. To go on and win the tournament with the Matildas – that was the moment we really believed that we could be the best in the world.”

The Matildas will open their Tournament of Nations defence against arch-rivals Brazil on 26 July in Kansas City. They will then travel to Connecticut to take on the USA on 29 July, before finishing their campaign against Asian Cup winners Japan in Illinois on 2 August.

Bronze said that moving to the European giants Lyon, who will face Wolfsburg in the Women’s Champions League final on Thursday in Kiev, has taken her game to a new level.



“To play with all these players at such a dominant club in women’s football... It’s a great thing and it was something that I always wanted to aspire to, but you never know whether you are capable of doing it until you actually do it,” she said.