“The best decision”
Despite the title: England star is not regretted by EM
31.08.2025 – 11:15 a.m.Reading time: 2 min.
While England won the European Championship title this summer, Millie Bright fought her own, personal struggle away from the lawn-and now looks back without regrets.
At the European Championship in Switzerland, the English national team won the title this summer for the second time in a row. However, the long -time selection player Millie Bright was not on the field. A few weeks before the tournament, she had canceled her participation. The reason: mental problems with the captain of FC Chelsea.
The 32-year-old was now talking to the BBC to do without her. In retrospect, she described the step not to fight the EM title with the English selection when the “far the best decision” that she had ever made. She was “really proud” on it, clarified Bright. Also because the step was anything but easy.
For the first time she “made a decision for me and not to please other people,” said Bright. At the 2023 World Cup, she had led the “Lionesses” to the final as a captain. Before the European Championship, however, she realized the mental state she was in. She couldn’t even think about the European Championship – that was a clear signal for her to take a break.
At the time of her tournament cancellation, an intensive season with 36 games for Chelsea, which culminated in the national triple, was behind Bright. “In the end I had nothing left, I was unhappy,” she said now. The defender described herself as a loud, energetic and spontaneous. “I felt that I had lost it and really lost myself,” she said.
The 88-time national player started with therapy sessions in summer. Today she is mentally and physically better, she feels “again in life”, as she emphasized. Bright had won the European Championship title with England in his own country in 2022.