England defender Lucy Bronze has revealed her and Leah Williamson were the reason behind Chloe Kelly’s penalty heroics against Brazil.
Kelly scored the final and winning spot-kick as the Lionesses beat Brazil 4-2 on penalties in the first ever women’s Finalissima on Thursday night at Wembley.
Bronze, however, has revealed how Kelly was actually due to go seventh in the shootout before her and Williamson intervened to change the order of takers.
“You won’t know this story, but they showed us the order for the penalties and I was sixth and Chloe was seventh,” Bronze told the BBC.
“And Leah was meant to be in the five and Leah was like: ‘Chloe needs to be in the five’. And I was like: ‘Yeah, she does!’
“So they put her third and I said: ‘No, no, put Chloe fifth, she’s going to score the winner’. I promise you [that’s what happened].
“Leah switched her in and I said: ‘Put Chloe fifth, she’s going to score the winner’. Afterwards I said to Chloe: ‘I told you that you were going to score the winner!’ It’s just Chloe Kelly and winners at Wembley, that seems to be a thing!
“We all trusted in the process and I think penalties is something that we have done a lot of work on. It’s nice to have put that work into action.
“Mary did some unbelievable saves, I think she nearly got her hands to another one actually as well.
“The girls stepped up and were brave and confident. We had total belief that Chloe was going to seal the deal. She knows how to perform under pressure.”
England’s win over Brazil extended their unbeaten run to 30 games and provided them with a good test as they build towards the World Cup this summer.
They had been on course to win in 90 minutes after Ella Toone, who missed in the shootout, opened the scoring in the first-half.
Brazil, however, equalised in injury-time through Andressa Alves and that sent the game to penalties.
“To be fair, when we looked at the list [of takers], we thought, those players are incredible for us,” said Williamson. “Mary, we know how good she is in goal. So actually I wasn’t worried at all.
“We had a little conversation about it (the order of takers), but just to make sure everybody was good.
“I don’t think anyone in this team would shy away. Everybody is ready to step up and take responsibility, and the execution was perfect.”
