‘Still a few skeptics’ – Lucy Bronze admits some fans still don’t believe she played through broken leg at Euro 2025

Lucy Bronze has admitted that some fans still don’t believe she played at Euro 2025 with a broken leg.

Bronze was part of the England squad that successfully defended their Euros crown in Switzerland last summer.

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The Lionesses beat Spain 3-1 on penalties in Basel last July after the pair couldn’t be separated after extra time.

England exacted revenge upon Spain, who beat the Lionesses in the 2023 World Cup final in Australia as Sarina Wiegman‘s side successfully defended their Euros crown.

After the tournament, however, Bronze revealed that she played the entirety of Euro 2025 with a fractured tibia.

“I’d been experiencing discomfort at the end of the domestic season and then had a scan to diagnose it,” Bronze wrote last year.

“The first time I played with knowledge of the injury was against Spain in the Nations League in early June. I came off early in the second half because I was committed to playing at the Euros.

“I never stopped training despite the pain that I’d experienced after having taken a few knocks.

“All I knew coming into the tournament was I wanted to play for England at the European Championship, although it was not a decision I took lightly.”

But Bronze has now revealed that there are still a few people who don’t believe she played through the pain for the national team after managing to keep things quiet during the Euros.

“Do you know what it was? It’s like I knew about it. The girls knew about it. Sarina did, the staff,” she told talkSPORT.

“The majority of the staff did. So some of our social media staff actually didn’t know. But they’ve been told like, ‘keep Lucy out of this certain thing’. But they had no idea.

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“They thought maybe it’s like my knee was a bit sore. Yeah. Obviously, my family knew.

“And then after some of the games, some of the younger players were like, ‘Can we tell people that you’ve got a broken leg?’

“I remember Esme Morgan, I was sat with her and Sarina and she was like, she asked for Sarina’s permission, which I was like, ‘It’s not Sarina’s leg, it’s mine’.

“She was like, ‘Sarina, you know, when the Euros is finished, like, can we talk about Lucy’s leg?’ And I was like, ‘of course you can, Esme’.

“She was like, ‘I can’t wait to talk about it’. And I was like, ‘Esme, nobody’s going to care’.

“I can vividly remember having this conversation. So I do owe Esme an apology for that.”

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‘Still a few skeptics’

Bronze then delved into why she had to carry on playing for England because of her pride in representing her country.

She continued to talkSPORT: “You know, when people say they’re so honoured to play for the country and things like that…I’ve never been very good at expressing my feelings with how I speak. I’m very good at doing things and showing it.

“I think I’ve never been able to show how much it means to me to play for England, because you score a goal and you celebrate. Like, yeah. ‘Oh, cool. She’s showing a bit of emotion’.

“I’m like, ‘No, guys, you don’t get it. Like, I love playing for England and I will do anything’. But I have never been able to speak about how much pain I’m in with my knees or the injections that I do, because it’s not something we speak about. And then this was an obvious injury because I was going to miss a couple of months of the season.

“So I had to talk about it eventually. And people were like, ‘Oh, you really want to play for England?’ I was like, yeah, ‘I’ve been telling you this for the last decade’. I finally got to have an example of it now.

“I think there’s still a few skeptics who think that I lied. I’ll have to print out the scan or something, post it on Instagram.”

When is the next major women’s tournament?

Bronze, who plies her trade at club level for Chelsea, will hope to add a World Cup winners’ medal to her collection at Brazil 2027.

England are still to qualify for next year’s showpiece and have been drawn alongside Ukraine, Iceland and defending world champions Spain in their qualifying group.

The Lionesses’ qualification campaign gets underway against Ukraine in March.