England striker Beth Mead wants to get on with the “serious business” as the Lionesses focus on this summer’s World Cup.
The Arsenal ace and her England team-mates take on Spain in the second of their Road to France Series on Tuesday, knowing that they’ve become something of a scalp for other teams after their recent success at the SheBelieves Cup.
And the former Sunderland player wants to make sure England can use that to their advantage and build their reputation further ahead of the trip to France in June.
“We’re there to be shot at – we’ve put ourselves on a bit of a pedestal,” admitted Mead, to the official Lionesses magazine.
“But we’ve got to take on that pressure and keep performing the way that we have done.
“We obviously want to take that into the World Cup. It’s a good platform that we’ve set for ourselves but we’ve got to build on that and hopefully improve on it too.”
Phil Neville’s side were perhaps unfortunate to lose their first game of the Series against Canada in Manchester last Friday, when a late goal from Christine Sinclair consigned them to a 1-0 defeat.
But the Lionesses have a chance to put that result behind them, when Spain are the visitors in Swindon on Tuesday.
“You expect Spain to have quite a bit of the ball, but it’s good to play against different teams with different tactics,” added Mead.
“To be the best, we need to beat the best teams from across the world and that’s the aim now.
“It will be a bit of a homecoming after the SheBelieves.
“Phil said to enjoy the moment but we need to make sure we don’t enjoy it too much. It was only a friendly tournament, so we need to keep our feet on the ground.
“I’m sure we can enjoy the response of the English fans – we can enjoy the limelight for two minutes.
“Then we can get on with the serious business.”
You can read the full interview with Beth when she talks more about the World Cup and THAT goal against Brazil at the SheBelieves Cup in the match programme for the Spain game. Order your copy online.
