Lucy Bronze has spoken to fellow internationals Declan Rice and Kieran Trippier about how it feels to be an England team in a home tournament.
Now England’s women are set to host Euro 2022, with each of their group games and the Wembley final sold out.
“We’re trying to see it as a lot of support. It’s our 12th man, hopefully,” said England full-back Bronze, 30.
“I think the best and biggest players want to play in those games with the full crowds.
“We saw what a difference it made to the men’s team last year and we’ve actually spoke to a lot of them in the past week about their experiences and what a difference it made, kind of being that home nation.”
Although England were co-hosts of Euro 2020, all but one of their games were played at Wembley.
England are the sole hosts for the Women’s Euro and both the men’s and women’s squads have been training at St George’s Park in recent weeks.
“They made the final so I think that’s something we want to replicate and use to our advantage,” said Bronze, who has helped England women reach the semi-finals of their last three major tournaments.
“Declan and Kieran came in to talk to us as a group and speak about their experiences but, equally, we’ve been in and around St George’s Park with them for the past couple of weeks, so we’ve chatted to a lot of them.
“It’s a nice atmosphere because I feel like both teams have gelled really well, which in the past I don’t think has really happened. They’re just our peers and they see us the same.”
A three-time Champions League winner with Lyon, Bronze won the Best Fifa Women’s Player award in 2020 and is set to leave Manchester City for a second time this summer.
“We were just talking about blocking out the outside world and things,” she said. “I think that’s something that I’ve probably had to deal with more than most players in this England squad over the past years.
“It was nice to be able to speak to someone who kind of has these issues about how they deal with those moments and what they do.”
England’s provisional 28-player squad will be cut to a final 23 on Wednesday, a day before the Lionesses play the first of three warm-up matches, against Belgium at Molineux.
They start their Euro 2022 campaign against Austria at Old Trafford on 6 July.
