On a huge poster in England’s meeting room at their Women’s World Cup training base are the words: “Follow your dreams”.
Alongside the words is the Lionesses’ route to the final at this tournament and the Football Association have left no stone unturned in their preparations to be there in Sydney on August 20.
Before they flew to Australia, coaching staff consulted a chrono coach, who specialises in helping athletes to get over jet lag quicker.
Players were shifted onto Australian time a few days before departure, going to bed and waking up earlier. The squad flew business class and had that part of the plane to themselves, so the lighting and meal times could be tailored to what coaching staff wanted.
Two sets of sunglasses were handed out to players for the journey. The ones with blue lenses helped keep them awake, the orange encouraged the body to make melatonin - which sends you to sleep.
After a pre-tournament camp in the Sunshine Coast and a short stay in Brisbane for their opening game, England are now at their base for the rest of the World Cup.
The coastal town of Terrigal will be their home and it is easy to see why it was the FA’s No1 choice.
It is a picturesque place, with the Lionesses’ hotel, the Crowne Plaza, a 30-second walk from a long sandy beach.
Since moving in on Sunday, players have spent their free time walking along there or frequenting the many coffee shops scattered along the seafront.
They usually walk around unnoticed, as they did at Euro 2022 when they were based at the Lensbury in south London, and most locals here are unaware the squad are even in town.
“We learned so much from the Lensbury...it was the feel, the home from home feel, the different activities, the relaxation area, the fact that everything was in such close proximity,” says the FA’s women’s technical director Kay Cossington.
“Coming to a tournament this size and scale of a country this big, we wanted to try and make the tournament as small as we could in terms of the logistics.”
Unlike other teams, the FA have paid to have a permanent base throughout the tournament and they have collaborated with Nike to ensure it is state of the art.
Three days before the Lionesses moved in on Sunday, a wing of the Crowne Plaza hotel was transformed.
The relaxation area, named the Scott Room in honour of legendary midfielder Jill Scott, has been kitted out with arcade machines, games consoles, a darts board, table tennis and virtual reality headsets.
There is a book corner with all seven Harry Potters on offer and a range of sporting autobiographies - including Ash Barty’s and Serena Williams’.
Bean bags surround the television in there where squad watch other games at the tournaments. If matches clash with meal times, then a huge projector shows them in the canteen.
Table tennis is already proving popular, while the darts board is well worn - with assistant Arjan Veurink hoping to continue his reign of dominance from the Euros. He was so good then, the squad called him ‘Michael van Gerwen’.
Away from the Scott Room - all the rooms are named after England legends - there is a huge table where the squad can do arts and crafts. Many have begun ‘painting by numbers’, others are making friendship bracelets.
Even without Scott in the squad, there are still plenty of coffee addicts and as a result a permanent barista is on site. By midday today he had made 40 coffees, even digitally printing players’ faces onto them if they wish. Tea is on the menu too, with 3.25kg of Yorkshire Tea shipped over.
That has, unsurprisingly, gone down well, but the best received part of the camp by the squad is a painting by artist Harry Ward.
It depicts the 23 Lionesses when they were children starting out on their grassroots journey.
The players have loved it, partly because they can poke fun at each other’s old hairstyles, but because it’s a constant reminder of where they have come from.
Many of them never thought they would come this far. They will just hope the journey doesn’t end until August 20.
