Millie Bright: I haven't retired, but I'm burnt out

Millie Bright has been England’s defensive mainstay in a tradition of heroic centre-backs. So, it jars to be talking to her in a London hotel rather than the team’s base in Zurich for the women’s European Championship.

Alongside her sits Rachel Daly, fellow stalwart of England’s Euro 2022 winning side. Daly retired from international football in April last year and is at peace with it. But it’s discordant to see Bright in exile from the squad, after she withdrew saying she would “not be able to give 100 per cent mentally or physically.”

Here was a chance to seek clarity on why she pulled out a month before the tournament, along with goalkeeper Mary Earps and forward Fran Kirby – all for different reasons. Bright’s private life has been raked over in the press but she’s adamant that it was surgery and recovery time that stopped her being part of England’s European title defence.

She is 32 next month, so could this be a de facto retirement from England duty? “No, [I’m] not retired,” Bright says. “I obviously needed to get my knee fixed, so I had my knee surgery pretty quickly after the season. And I just think mentally and physically as well I was just very burnt out.

“Like I said, it would have been very selfish of me to go to a tournament having been 50% and not 100%. I know how important it is, no matter what role you play in the tournament, to be 100%, mentally and physically. And with where the game is at – the competition level – I’m taking a spot away from a player who can give more than me at this moment in time.”

The term “burnt out” continues to suggest a more complicated backdrop but even if Bright never sees an 89th England cap, her place in folklore is safe. She and Daly (84 caps) make a podcast together called Daly Brightness and share an especially solid friendship. Daly says: “I’ve been through some of the darkest periods of my life with Millie sat by my side, and who knows where I’d be sat today if I didn’t have her there.”

On the football side Daly is similarly appreciative: “The modern centre back is a ball-playing centre-back, someone who can use left and right foot, someone who can step in with the ball and defend the space. Millie’s got all those attributes. I couldn’t be more proud of her.” If that sounds at all past tense, Bright is already preparing her pre-season return to Chelsea.

“I’ve got another season [ahead] with Chelsea,” she says. “It’s extremely competitive. Also I don’t want to be in pain walking down the stairs. I don’t want to be in pain day to day, I want to be able to walk down the stairs and do normal things. So the priority was taking care of my body.”

All last week this European Championship was previewed through the lens of 2022, that carnival and breakthrough for the Lionesses. Since then there have been intimations of tensions in Sarina Wiegman’s set-up as the old guard battle through another tournament cycle under her forthright leadership.

Wiegman addressed rumblings about her management style in Zurich. “The players call that direct, but do not confuse that with being blunt,” she said. “I am not blunt – well, I hope not. I am trying to be honest and clear about things to give them context. I am actually very caring and that’s often not very helpful in this job. I want to take care of people but I have a job where I have to make hard decisions.”

The miraculous “buy-in” Wiegman achieved in 2022 will be harder this time round, with some of the big names dropping away and Hannah Hampton, Aggie Beever-Jones, Maya Le Tissier, Grace Clinton, Jess Park and Michelle Agyemang all graduating to England’s title defence.

Bright says: “The girls going into their first tournament will be pecking the brains of Lucy Bronze, Beth Mead, Leah Williamson, on what a tournament is like. The kids are like sponges, wanting to be better.

“What everyone needs to remember is that it’s a completely different team, and we need to not [say] – you won it that time, you need to win it again,” Daly says.

To listen to them recall the spirit of 2022 is to appreciate how elusive camp unity can be. Daly says self-sacrifice was at the core of those halcyon days: “One hundred per cent. At the last Euros, Sarina stuck with the same [starting] XI for the entire tournament. To have some players not featuring for any minutes, and some getting minutes here and there, and players who didn’t start ever, that’s such a hard thing to do, and they were the best people, they were the glue who held it all together.

“You’ve got to have that cohesive unit, where everyone’s on the same page at all times.” If anyone pulls away from it, she says, “the chain’s off the bike.”

Bright takes up the story: “Our environment off the pitch was spot on. We really made sure we had time alone, time with family, time to gel, a lot of time as a group – and we made a pact that nothing gets in the bubble, nothing gets out.

“[We said], if we want to win, we’ve got this opportunity to change our lives, and change the nation, and we all bought into that. If we hadn’t, it would all have looked very different. Very different.

‘With how everyone handled themselves, you wouldn’t have known who was starting and who wasn’t if you’d seen us in our own environment.”

With the expansion since then of the club game, you wonder whether being a Lioness will always be the pinnacle in women’s football. Bright: “Oh yeah, 100 per cent.” Daly: “It’s the biggest pinnacle in anything. Representing your country is the biggest honour, when you pull on that shirt, and sing that national anthem.”

Bright needs to pull on that top 12 more times to reach 100, assuming that’s the plan.

The Rest Is Football: Daly Brightness

Photograph by Garry Jones