Fara Williams is preparing for her seventh major tournament as an England international – and she says they have never had a better chance of winning a gold medal.
Mark Sampson’s side qualified unbeaten for Euro 2017 where they face Scotland (on Wednesday 19 July), Spain (Sunday 23 July) and Portugal (Thursday 27 July) in the group stage.
Williams helped the Lionesses to a runners-up spot at Euro 2009 and to a World Cup bronze in 2015. And she reckons her team-mates are now primed for glory.
She said: “I feel that we’ve genuinely got a realistic chance of winning the Euros.
“We’ve gone into previous tournaments more in hope. But now we really believe we can win it.
“After what we did at the World Cup, the results we’ve picked up in a few big friendlies since Canada and the way we qualified for the Euros, we have showed how close we are getting to the very best.
“There is a real belief among the girls, more so than before any other tournament.
“I think you need that little bit of arrogance if you want to be a top team and that’s starting to show through with us now.”
England met up on Monday ahead of a friendly in Switzerland at the weekend.
It is the first of two matches they will play in the build-up to the Euros, followed by a warm weather training camp in Valencia.
Williams added: “We’ve got a lot of time to get a good block of fitness work done.
“Most of us are generally match-fit from the Spring Series but we’ve also got a chance to build up our general fitness and strength, things like that.
“The England staff know what sort of sessions we need going into a major tournament so it should be a tough few weeks.”
Williams, the most-capped England player of all-time, made her 100th international appearance against Switzerland in 2012 and marked the occasion by scoring the only goal of the game.
Ranked 16th in the world, Martina Voss-Tecklenburg’s side have also qualified for the Euros where they have been drawn alongside France, Iceland and Austria.
Williams said: “Switzerland are definitely up and coming. They’ve got a similar style to Germany. They’re going to be very tough and great opposition to face going into the Euros.
“They are now competing with the top teams and staying in the game against the top teams, but I think we need to go there, get a win and put in a good performance.
“We need to prove that our belief isn’t all talk. It’s not over-confidence at all; it really is a genuine belief that we are good enough.
“But we need to back it up. We need to put down a marker.”
