Lucy Bronze admits Lionesses have more to give ahead of Colombia clash

Lucy Bronze believes, that despite the tough games, England have learned from each World Cup game so far, making them better for it, while there is still more to come from the Lionesses as tournament reaches the quarter-final stage.

It was a backs-against-the-wall game for England against Nigeria in the previous round, with the Super Falcons the more physical, aggressive and dominant team - the Lionesses didn't know how to cope with their man-marking approach, incisive counter-attacking and strong defending.

Reflecting on that game, seasoned defender Bronze paradoxically revealed disappointment yet pride in the team’s performance after failing to score in open play and eventually winning on penalties.

"I think we had a bit more quality on the ball," she said. "We could make the game a lot easier. I think we played a little bit more into the strengths of Nigeria, which is obviously the physical counter attack, the pace and the power that they have."

What England have learned from their victories over Haiti, Denmark, China and Nigeria so far will help as they now prepare to face Colombia in the last eight on Saturday.

"There's no point in playing our best performances in the first games; we might as well save them for the quarter-finals or further than that," the Barcelona player explained.

"We've built on every game...we’ve taken something from every game, whether that was the Haiti game that was physical, the Denmark game when we lost our key player in Keira [Walsh], the China game we changed the formation completely. [Against Nigeria] we had a red card."

England's only real standout performance came against China, attracting criticism for more laboured displays in the three other games. But that is something Bronze has paid no attention to, choosing to concentrate on the bravery the team showed in the face of much adversity.

"Everything has been thrown at us, we've dealt with and moved forward. I don't see many other teams who’ve had that adversity and if they had, I don’t think they've managed to overcome the way we have,” the Barcelona star said, referring to the pre-tournament injuries for Beth Mead, Fran Kirby and Leah Williamson, Walsh being stretchered off against Denmark and then Lauren James' red card.

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"At the same time, we are not happy with our performance," she continued. "We can give more. We’'e a fantastic team with highly talented players. But the important thing is we got through to the next round.

"I think we showed the side of this England team where we are tactically smart. We have our mentality, see games out and then the penalties. All we can do is go back to training and focus on the job at hand. The most important thing is that we're coming out of games with wins."

Even without consistently performing, England are still in the tournament, which is not something that can be said for the likes of the United States, Germany, Brazil or Canada, all of whom would have hoped to at least reach the latter stages.

“We're the ones who are still in the competition and there's many top teams who are going home because they haven't been able to get that point or been able to see the games out in the penalty shootout and we have," Bronze said.

"We've shown that side of our team that we know what it takes to win."

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