Lucy Bronze: 'Barcelona's Camp Nou sell-outs prove popularity of women’s football'

In her exclusive column for GiveMeSport Women, England and Manchester City superstar Lucy Bronze discusses record attendances for women’s football and selling out Old Trafford for Euro 2022. 

Playing in front of thousands of people is an incredible feeling. It’s great to know that people are there to support you, but I also kind of like it when they want to see you fail. 

England recently played Northern Ireland in front of 15,000 of their fans, and I know the majority of the crowd didn’t want us to do well. I got nut-megged and the crowd was cheering, but that kind of thing pushes you as a player. Your pride’s on the line.

Of course, playing in front of a big crowd is not the be-all and end-all. When we played North Macedonia, there was a British Army base nearby and around 30 of them turned up. They alone created an amazing atmosphere!

But it’s the absolute best when there are crowds cheering, singing songs, chanting and booing. The support around the ground makes such a difference to the team. It would be great if we could have this more in women’s football, and really start to build a proper home advantage. 

There’s not many better stadiums in the world than Nou Camp. That’s why it was so cool to see a world-record crowd attend Barcelona’s match with Real Madrid in the Women’s Champions League.

We’ve seen other stadiums sell out for women’s football, but not that quickly, and not to that extent. It’s even better that they’ve managed to sell out again for Barcelona’s clash against Wolfsburg tonight. 

Obviously, the match against Real Madrid was a highly-anticipated encounter. It was the Champions League and it was a fixture which already has an intense rivalry. 

But it showed that women’s football is evolving. There