Lucy Bronze admitted she was “blown away” when she won the award for PFA Player of the Year in 2013/14 while playing for Liverpool.
Conventional wisdom dictates that awards and accolades of that ilk are typically reserved for attacking players who create a litany of chances, score a raft of goals, or do a combination of both. Yet there was Bronze, a right-back, scooping the most votes.
Making it all the more remarkable was Bronze’s living situation. Then 22, she was doing things the hard way but described this phase of her career as “so much fun.” As well as the PFA Player of the Year, Bronze became a two-time back-to-back Women’s Super League winner with Liverpool before moving to Manchester City and lifting the title again in 2016 and being voted the PFA Player of the Year for a second time.
Bronze has also won the Champions League four times, three with Lyon and one with current club Barcelona, but she will never forget the early part of her career that helped her become the player she is today.
Asked how she looks back on joining the Reds, becoming a WSL champion, and winning the PFA Player of the Year, she told the current issue of FourFourTwo magazine: “It was amazing. I was sleeping on people’s couches when I won PFA Player of the Year – or staying at my parents’ house and driving three hours to training pretty much every day.
“On the pitch, though, I had so much fun. My game went to another level, because for the first time in my career I was training every day and had more facilities and support.
“Winning the league back-to-back was amazing, and winning PFA Player of the Year – I was thinking, ‘How is a right-back winning an individual award?’ I was blown away.
“I remember the phone call; being told I had to go to the awards because I’d won. I thought, ‘You’ve called the wrong person!’”
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