It’s just over a week before the 2022-23 Women’s Champions League final when Barcelona stars Lucy Bronze and Ingrid Engen sit down to chat to the media all about the Catalans’ meeting with Wolfsburg in Eindhoven. It’ll be a fourth final for Bronze, with her having won all of her previous three. It’s a stat line that comes up several times during the call.
Engen, sadly, has yet to hoist the UWCL trophy high above her head, having lost the two finals she has participated in. When a member of the press frames their question with that fact at the start, the midfielder cannot help but interrupt. “Yeah, I don’t have the same stats as Lucy,” she interjects, in jest, before the two team-mates and the journalist enjoy a good laugh together.
In Engen’s defence, few players do. Not only will England international Bronze maintain that rare 100 percent record, and see her Norwegian team-mate lift a first title, if she can help Barca win on Saturday – she will also join the special club of players to have won the UWCL with two different teams.
It’s current made up of 18 names, 15 of whom are German. Given four different German clubs won the competition between 2005 and 2014, that’s no surprise. Bronze, though, could become just the fourth player of a different nationality to do it, after Jess Fishlock, Kheira Hamaraoui and current team-mate Ana-Maria Crnogorcevic.
She’d be the first English player to achieve the feat. None of the group that became champions of Europe with Arsenal in 2007 enjoyed that success again elsewhere – nor have any of the various English players who won it with Bronze at Lyon.
Where, then, does Bronze rank among England’s greatest-ever players?