GENEVA, Switzerland — Having scored the first of England's two goals in their stunning quarterfinal comeback against Sweden, strapping her own injured leg up in extra-time, before ditching the strapping and hammering home what turned out to be the winning penalty in the shootout, right back Lucy Bronze was asked in this age of «proper England» whether that was a «proper Lucy Bronze» performance.
«Lucy Bronze is proper England,» she responded.
Tuesday's game against Italy will be England's sixth major semifinal in 10 years; Bronze and fellow defender Alex Greenwood have been part of the squad for all six.
«It's amazing speaking to them about the journey and the change in the things that we have at our base camp, for example,» defender Esme Morgan, who came on against Sweden as a substitute, said. «And it's really special knowing how far the game has come, and it's a big source of pride that England have consistently got to the last stage of these tournaments.»
Reaching the final four seems normal for the Lionesses now, but it wasn't always this way and has been the result of a lot of hard work over the past decade.
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The 2015 World Cup in Canada was start of the «Bronze Age» (it was only Bronze's second major tournament) and, as England reached World Cup semifinal for the first time, she played on the left wing, right back, scored a thunderbolt winner against Norway in the round of 16, and netted a key header against Canada in the quarterfinals. England went on to lose
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