Three Champions Leagues, 19 club titles and a European champion: Should Barcelona star Lucy Bronze be considered one of England’s greatest-ever women’s footballers?

Bronze's career started in promising fashion. She won the league with Sunderland as a 17-year-old and the Euros with England's Under-19s that same summer. Soon after, she moved to the United States for college and won two titles with the Tar Heels as part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's impressive women's soccer programme.

But not long after those early successes, Bronze would be hit with a series of knee injuries that sidelined her for 12 months. Several years later, she would explain in an interview with The Telegraph that, at the time, she thought it was "punishment" for missing her best friend's funeral because of the U19 Euros.

"I think that’s why my knee injuries never bothered me," she explained. "People tell me it must have been so hard, but I got on with it because there’s a lot worse things that can happen."

There were uncertainties about whether Bronze would make it as a top-level player, too. She has spoken about being told that she wasn't good enough when she was younger, while it took so long for her first senior England call-up to come along that she considered representing Portugal, the nation of her father.

Fortunately for the Lionesses, it wouldn't come to that...

Bronze’s rise to becoming one of the best full-backs in the world was a gradual one. Upon her return to England after college, she’d win back-to-back Women’s Super League titles with Liverpool and her form started to be recognised with individual accolades.

Her marauding runs, tireless work ethic and battling attitude were all key traits that would help her ascend to the top, complemented by good decision-making, cool composure and an ability to be a threat in the final third – either by creating chances or scoring them herself.

Bronze finally debuted for England in the summer of 2013 and was part of the squad that disappointed at the Euros the same year, albeit without getting on the pitch. Two years later, her role at the Women’s World Cup was massively different. She was a key part of the starting XI as the Lionesses finished third. Indeed, it was her rocket of a goal against Norway that saw her country win their first-ever World Cup knockout game.

“Potentially the best right-back in the world," then-head coach Mark Sampson said of Bronze after that match. From that point on, she took her game to new levels, getting better and better and better.

In 2016, she won the league again, this time with Manchester City, and the following year she joined the biggest club in the women's game - Lyon. It was that transfer that seemed to confirm her status as one of the world’s best.

Bronze was one of several English players that represented Lyon between 2017 and 2021, but she was the one who became the most important for them.

Nikita Parris’ goalscoring record from her time in France is impressive and she stepped up well when Ada Hegerberg was out in particular, but she was always competing with a very strong group of forwards during her two seasons. Izzy Christiansen, meanwhile, saw her time with Lyon spoiled by injury; Alex Greenwood started regularly enough in the league but was largely on the bench in Europe; and Jodie Taylor struggled to hit the back of the net during her short spell.

Bronze, meanwhile, started - and won - all three of the Champions League finals Lyon reached while she was there. Of the 24 games in the competition she was available for, she was in the line up for 23 of them. Only twice was she subbed off.

The full-back was a constant for the European champions. To nail down such a role in a team like Lyon’s takes more than just talent – you need the right mentality, too. Bronze had that in spades.

“People don’t always appreciate how hard it is to focus on so many competitions at the same time, regardless of how good you might be and the talent you have,” she told GOAL in an exclusive interview back in 2019, after winning the treble for the first time in France. “It’s still hard to keep your focus and your drive in every single game, but that’s the expectation at Lyon. It’s 'every single game is [to] win', because you’ve got to have that focus to win trophies.”

Bronze is now embarking on a new challenge with another of Europe’s biggest teams – Barcelona. Since she was part of the Lyon team that beat them back in 2019, Barca have grown massively to be one of the best teams in Europe, winning their first continental crown two years after. At the same time, Bronze has continued to perform at a very high level, so much so that the Spanish champions recruited her last summer.

Jonatan Giraldez rotates his team well, but Bronze is seen as his first-choice right-back, with her able to add a lot to this team both in terms of her quality and her experience. Speaking to the press last week, it is the importance of the latter that Engen talked up when discussing what her new team-mate has added to the side.

“She shows it on the pitch a lot for us,” she explained. “It is like she has come in and felt good from the beginning, even though it's maybe a different style of football. I think she has shown that she suits Barcelona really well and she brings a lot of good physique for us, both defensively and offensively. It's been a really good match, I would say.”

One would typically assume that the experience Bronze has would be of particular benefit to the youngsters in the Catalans’ squad, but the player herself says that’s not always the case. “It's funny because I don't think it's the younger players that ask as much,” she said. “When you're a young player, you just enjoy every single moment. I think as you get older, you learn to find out more about experiences.

“One of the players that probably asked me the most about stuff would be Alexia [Putellas] but, equally, their experiences are things that I can learn from as well. I don't think it's necessarily you tell them, 'Well, this is how we should do things'. I think it's just learning from each other and sharing the pressure of going into games.”

One of the games that Bronze knows all about is a Champions League final. This will be her fourth and she’ll hope it will end in a fourth title. Should it indeed go that way, she would join that group of players to have won the title with two clubs. When GOAL puts that potential achievement to her, Bronze is pleased about what it says of her.

“It's something that's pretty exciting because I think it gives you a different motivation,” she explains. “People say, 'Oh, you've won it three times', but I won it with a very different team and at a different time in my career. I've had to change teams and adapt again, get to a final again, so it's a little bit different.

"I'm just as excited for this game as I was for my very first final with Lyon. I guess I'm quite proud of the fact that I've been capable of making the final five years ago and then later on in my career I managed to do it again. That's something I'm really happy about.”

After all, to be able to establish yourself at one dominant, world-class club is one thing. To move on, to a new country with a new language to learn, a different culture and a different playing style and be able to do it all again? It’s applaudable.

On that list of names to have won the UWCL with two clubs, only five have done it with sides from two different countries. It speaks volumes of Bronze’s longevity and consistency at the very highest level that she has a chance to match the accomplishment.

So, we're back to the question. Where does Bronze rank among England's greatest-ever players? It's a difficult question to answer in such absolute terms because it's important to note the different eras that women's football has passed through in such a short space of time.

Kelly Smith, who became a European champion with Arsenal in 2007, is widely regarded as the country's best female footballer of all time. However, she was at her highest level in a period when the game was not professional in England - or Europe, really. Moving to another team capable of winning the Champions League wasn't a particularly secure option. Instead, Smith's moves abroad during the 2000s were to the U.S., where she could play professionally.

Today, things are very different and it makes more sense to talk about Bronze's career in this new, modern era of professionalism. And when we do that, there are not many that come close to what she has achieved.

To have this sort of consistency at the top level for so many years, to win multiple titles in several different countries, to have the bravery and the motivation to take those leaps abroad - it's all very impressive. And to be part of the first England women's national team to win a major tournament, at last summer's Euros, speaks for itself.

Bronze, then, has to be one of greatest English players of her generation. She might even be the greatest.