England women’s soccer team roster: players, profiles, stars

Here’s your player guide to the England side at the Women’s World Cup 2023. This article is part of a collaboration with the Guardian along with leading newspapers from each of the participating countries at the tournament.

The England player guide was written by Louise Taylor for the Guardian.

The England Lionesses are one of the highly fancied sides at the tournament and despite key injuries (Mead, Williamson and Kirby) impacting on the current European champions preparations ahead of the competition, Sarina Wiegman’s side are expected to lead the European challenge along with the likes of Spain, Germany and France.

GOALKEEPERS

Mary Earps

Date of birth: 7th March 1993

Position: Goalkeeper

Club: Manchester United

Profile: Earps was shopping for curtain poles when, back in 2021 she received a life changing call from Sarina Wiegman. Cast into England’s goalkeeping deep freeze by Phil Neville, she had become resigned to her international career being over. Everything changed under Neville’s successor, with Earps’s rise culminating in a series of stellar performances as England won Euro 2022. Fifa’s reigning Goalkeeper of the Year is an Information Management and Business Studies graduate from Loughborough University who has since taken a refresher course in entrepreneurship and regularly reads books on international economics. The Nottingham-born keeper learned German during the 2018-19 season she spent with Wolfsburg and says the experience of living abroad “taught me to be myself; to disagree and say no”. At United she has received unstinting support from her men’s counterpart, David de Gea. Like her fellow Lionesses, the Spain keeper knows to be wary of Earps’ penchant for innovative practical jokes.

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Ellie Roebuck

Date of birth: 23 September 1999

Position: Goalkeeper

Club: Manchester City

Profile: As recently as the Tokyo Olympics Roebuck was Team’s GB first choice goalkeeper but a calf injury sustained at the start of the 2021-22 season sidelined her for what she describes as “the worst seven months of my life”. Although restored to Manchester City’s goal, the Sheffield United fan has not succeeded in usurping Mary Earps as England’s No. 1 but can give almost any Lioness midfielder a run for their money during five-a-sides. A very decent outfield player, Roebuck impresses immensely with the ball at her feet and has benefited from training alongside Pep Guardiola’s men’s goalkeepers at City. She relaxes by walking her dog. Roebuck introduced the series of children fostered by her parents at heir Sheffield home to the art of goalkeeping. She says that sharing her house with those youngsters “opened my eyes to less privileged lives.”

Hannah Hampton

Date of birth: 16 November 2000

Position: Goalkeeper

Club: Free agent

Profile: Hampton is back in the England after being dropped by club and country ast autumn for “personal issues” involving an attitude problem. Her return reflects the exceptional talent of a keeper who was born with a squint and became so cross eyed that, by the age of three, she had undergone three operations. When she was five, Hampton’s teacher parents emigrated from Warwickshire to Spain where she joined the Villarreal academy – as a striker. Hampton remains fluent in Spanish and French and makes frequent visits to Spain. After returning to England she became a goalkeeper in Stoke’s academy but was diagnosed with Strabismus, an eye condition which affects depth perception. Although doctors initially told her she would never play top level football an amalgam of incredible determination and ophthalmic skill earned a clear-sighted Hampton a place in England’s triumphant Euro 2022 squad. Is leaving Aston Villa this summer after two years at the club.

DEFENDERS

Lucy Bronze

Date of Birth: 28th October 1991

Position: Right back

Club: Barcelona

Profile: The first English footballer to win the Champions League with two different clubs (three times at Lyon and most recently with Barcelona) Bronze spent part of her childhood growing up on remote, windswept Holy Island - or Lindisfarne - off the north Northumberland coast. Born just across the Scottish border in Berwick-upon-Tweed, to an English mother and a Portuguese father, she had the choice of representing three countries internationally. Now widely regarded as the world’s best right back, Bronze played for Alnwick Town boys team in Northumberland until the age of 11 and, as a University Student in North Carolina, later turned out for North Carolina Tar Heels under the world renowned coach Anson Dorrance. She says the Tar Heels taught her “that it was ok for a girl to be competitive and want to win”. Bronze, who can also play in midfield, has recovered from the sixth knee operation of her career in time for her third World Cup.

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Millie Bright

Date of Birth: 21 August 1993

Position: Centre back

Club: Chelsea

Profile: After undergoing cartilage surgery in March Bright has raced against time to be fit for Australia and captain England in place of the injured Leah Williamson. Yet, as a child she was more interested in horses and, after being first placed in the saddle as a two-year-old, dreamed of becoming a show jumper. Although a place in the Killamarsh Dynamos team in her native Derbyshire began converting Bright to the game’s charms, she subsequently combined working as a teenage groom to a professional dressage rider with playing semi-professional football. A powerful centre half with a penchant for scoring spectacular volleys, Bright proved integral to the Lionesses’ Euro 2022 success and credits her grandfather, Arthur, a former miner, for inspiring her combative approach. “He said ‘Millie, if it’s a 50/50 ball make sure you win it’,” says a player keen to return to equestrianism post retirement. “You could say I’m a front foot defender.”

Alex Greenwood

Date of Birth: 7 September 1993

Position: Centre back/left back

Club: Manchester City

Profile: Greenwood was arguably unlucky to spend much of Euro 2022 on the bench following Sarina’s Wiegman’s last-minute decision to relocate Leah Williamson from midfield to central defence. With Williamson now injured, there is little doubt the left footed Greenwood will be one of the first names on England’s team sheet in Australia. The Liverpudlian is the longstanding partner of the Sheffield United defender Jack O’Connell and happily acknowledges that much of their home life revolves around watching, analysing and talking football. A former left-back Greenwood has morphed into a left-sided centre-half whose elegant assurance on the ball – something further honed during a recent season spent winning a quartet of trophies at Lyon – proved pivotal to England’s stylistic transition under Wiegman.

Lotte Wubben-Moy

Born: 11 January 1999 (age 24)

Position: Central defender

Wubben-Moy helped secure a powerful off pitch political victory when she and fellow Lionesses persuaded the UK government to ensure schoolgirls are offered equal access to sport. The elegant, ball-playing, central defender comes from an artistic family. Her Dutch father is a furniture designer, her English mother a fashion designer and her sister a graphic designer. After attending Essex’s Anglo-European academy, a player whose football education embraced the concrete cages of Bow, East London and Arsenal’s academy, headed to the United States on a sports scholarship. While playing for North Carolina’s Tar Heels, Wubben-Moy blossomed under the influence of their much vaunted coach, Anson Dorrance, returning to the Arsenal first team ready. Noted for her outstanding work in assorted Arsenal community projects, she writes a regular, thought provoking, blog, The Lotte Little Things, and is in a relationship with the leading British cyclist, Tao Geoghegan Hart.

Esme Morgan

Date of Birth: 18 October 2000 (age 22)

Position: Defender

Club: Manchester City

Profile: Manchester City’s manager, Gareth Taylor, has said that the only two positions he would not consider deploying Morgan in are in goal and as a striker. Although the right-sided central defensive role is arguably her forte, Morgan has also shone at right-back and as an anchoring midfielder for City this season, occasionally captaining the side in Steph Houghton’s absence. The former England Under-19 skipper missed most of the 2021-22 campaign after breaking a leg but has recovered to excel for club and country. Despite being born in Sheffield, Morgan was brought up as a City fan, with her family first taking her to watch the team at the age of three. Almost two decades on, her leadership qualities and extraordinary maturity have helped secure this most accomplished utility player a World Cup place. Taylor has tipped Morgan, who combines football with studying for a sports science degree at Manchester Metropolitan University, to eventually captain England.

Jess Carter

Date of Birth: 27 October 1997 (age 25)

Position: Left back:

Club: Chelsea

Carter spends much of her free time fund raising for cancer research after both her partner, the Chelsea goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger, and her sister, Amelia, required treatment for the disease. Both women have recovered, with Berger also heading to Australia this summer as Germany’s goalkeeper. Carter is slightly harder to pin down positionally and can operate at centre-back, left-back, right-back, wing-back and in midfield. Born in Warwick she was a sporting all rounder as a child, playing County-level netball and rounders as well as appearing at fly-half for Worcester Warriors. “I was better at rugby than football,’ she says. “But then at 16 I had to choose between the two.” Football won and Carter joined Birmingham where in 2014, at 16, she made her debut in a Champions League quarter-final against Arsenal, winning the player of the match award.

Niamh Charles

Date of Birth: 21 June 1999 (age 24)

Position: Right back

Club: Chelsea

So versatile she has been known to occupy three positions in a single match for Chelsea, Charles started out as a winger with Liverpool but has mainly dropped into defence since joining Emma Hayes’s side, variously operating as a full-back and wing back on both flanks. Strong and swift, she grew up on the Wirral supporting Liverpool and playing for a boys’ team, West Kirby Wasps. A Sports Science graduate from Merseyside’s John Moores University, Charles became obsessed with the game at the age of five when her parents allowed her to stay up and watch Liverpool’s 2005 Champions League final against Milan. As the Miracle of Istanbul unfolded and Rafael Benitez’s team made the most improbable comeback before lifting the trophy Charles fell in love - with both Steven Gerrard and football. This will be her first major tournament.

MIDFIELDERS

Keira Walsh

Date of Birth: 8 April 1997 (age 26)

Position: Midfield

Club: Barcelona

Profile: Walsh flies to Australia as a freshly crowned Champions League winner with Barcelona and trailing a burgeoning reputation as one of the world’s best central midfielder. During her Manchester City supporting childhood in Rochdale she named her two goldfish after City strikers: Shaun Goater and Nicolas Anelka. Spotting his daughter’s aptitude for football, Walsh’s father routinely spent two hours every evening coaching her in the field opposite their house. Later, she repeatedly studied videos of the positioning and movement of City midfielders, most notably David Silva and Yaya Touré. She joined Blackburn’s academy as a right-footed left-back but signed for City as a technically proficient midfielder anchor with an eye for a pass. Nick Cushing, a former City manager, describes Walsh as “the most tactically intelligent player I’ve worked with.” After starring at Euro 2022 she rebuffed Lyon and Atlético Madrid before swapping Manchester for Barcelona. She struggles with Spanish but little else.

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Jordan Nobbs

Date of Birth: 8 December 1992 (age 30)

Position: Midfield

Club: Aston Villa

Profile: Nobbs must rank as one of the most unlucky Lionesses. The talented midfielder – able to nail the demands of any role across that department – tore a hamstring shortly before the 2015 World Cup and played only one game in Canada. Four years on she then missed the 2019 World Cup in France after rupturing a cruciate ligament and was ruled out of Euro 2022 with knee trouble. The daughter of Keith Nobbs, now head of Hartlepool United’s community foundation but once a formidable defender for the club – famed as “hard as nails” he once lost six teeth in a derby with Darlington but declined to be substituted – she grew up in County Durham. After cutting her footballing teeth at Sunderland she spent more than 12 years with Arsenal before joining Aston Villa in January, where she has since excelled.

Katie Zelem

Date of Birth: 20 January 1996 (age 27)

Position: Midfield

Club: Manchester United

Profile: As an only child, Manchester United’s captain – and set piece specialist – spent long hours being coached by her father Alan Zelem in their back garden. A former Macclesfield Town goalkeeper, Zelem senior ensured his daughter became two-footed and that grounding eventually helped secure a midfielder blessed with a fine passing range and a knack of scoring some important goals, a move to Juventus. Along the way to winning the title in Turin, Zelem learned Italian and served as the Juve dressing room’s in-house DJ. The niece of the former Wolves and Burnley defender, Peter Zelem, she has long been inspired by Fara Williams and regards the former England midfielder as a key role model. This is her first major tournament.

Georgia Stanway

Date of Birth: 3 January 1999 (age 22)

Position midfield

Club: Bayern Munich

Profile: Stanway stepped out of her comfort zone when she swapped Manchester City for Bayern Munich last summer but, despite struggling to learn German, the Euro 2022 winner swiftly looked at home in Bavaria. Brought up in a Newcastle-supporting family she aimed to emulate Alan Shearer and has scored plenty of goals Shearer would treasure. Having grown up playing both football and cricket in Barrow, Cumbria, Stanway switches off by taking regular breaks in the Lake District; “It’s so beautiful and where I feel at peace,” she says. Originally a striker, she has morphed into a technically assured goal-scoring, box-to-box midfielder who, sometimes, appeared at right-back for City, where she also impressed in goal during training. During lockdown Stanway and her partner, the Toulouse rugby league star Olly Ashall-Bolt, became hooked on fishing. She is also extremely neat and jokes about unwinding by “tidying the drawers in my cupboards”.

Laura Coombs

Date of Birth: 29 January 1991

Position: Midfield

Club: Manchester City

Profile: The oldest player in the squad, Coombs only returned to competitive senior England action in February this year following an eight-year absence. She admits that, after winning her first cap under Mark Sampson in 2015 but then not receiving another call up for so long, it felt like her Lionesses dream had long since been dashed. “I was shocked,” acknowledges Coombs, whose sole involvement during Phil Neville’s England tenure was a one-off participation in a 30-player training camp. As a general rule Sarina Wiegman prefers to pick younger players but the quality of Coombs’s performance for Manchester City this season proved irresistible, as did the experience and leadership qualities of a Gravesend-born midfielder who has previously represented Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Los Angeles Strikers. Coombs holds a business studies degree from the University of Hertfordshire and harbours hopes of becoming an entrepreneur after hanging up her boots.

Ella Toone

Date of Birth: 2 September 1999 (age 23)

Position: Attacking midfielder/winger

Club: Manchester United

Profile: Toone shone as a game-changing super-sub during Euro 2022, stepping off the bench to score England’s first goal in the 2-1 win against Germany in the Wembley final and, crucially, turning the quarter-final against Spain the Lionesses’ way, but aims to excel as a starter in Australia. As adept at creating goals as scoring them, she can invariably be found at, or near, the top of the WSL assists charts. Her excellent movement and capacity for delivering defence-bisecting through-passes make her ideally suited to Marc Skinner’s fluid attack at United. From Tyldesley near Wigan, she is a lifelong United fan but played for City before crossing Manchester’s great divide. She models parts of her game on that of United’s Bruno Fernandes but, as a child in her back garden, pretended she was Cristiano Ronaldo. Her partner is the Macclesfield forward Joe Bunney and Alessia Russo is her best friend.

FORWARDS

Lauren Hemp

Date of Birth: 7 August 2000 (age 22)

Position: Winger/forward

Club: Manchester City

Profile: Hemp habitually wears a blank white wristband on which, before kick off, she writes herself inspirational messages such as “Be Brave.” A multiple past recipient of the PFA’s young female player of the year award and a Euro 2022 winner, the goal-scoring, Lego loving, winger is invariably one of the first names on Sarina Wiegman’s team-sheets. Happily she has retained a refreshing humility. Manchester City’s manager, Gareth Taylor says: “Lauren doesn’t know how good she is.” Hemp left her family home in Norfolk at 16 to join Bristol City, arriving at Manchester City in 2018 and has never looked back. As Kelly Smith, once England’s finest forward, puts it: “There are not too many players that get me off my seat but Lauren Hemp is one. When she gets the ball, she makes things happen, she dribbles so fast, she’s lethal.” Hemp house shares with her team-mate Esme Morgan but is, apparently, an unenthusiastic cook.

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Alessia Russo

Born 8 February 1999 (age 24)

Position: Centre forward

Club: Arsenal

Profile: Manchester United rejected a world record bid for Russo from Arsenal in January but there was nothing the club could do when she announced in June that she was leaving at the end of her contract to join the Gunners. Quite simply the centre-forward who served as a super-sub along England’s road to Euro 2022 glory and seems the retired Ellen White’s natural international successor, is red hot property right now. Significantly, Russo played for North Carolina Tar Heels while on a sports scholarship, also involving geology, in the United States. She is of Italian descent, her Sicilian grandfather having emigrated to England in the 1950s and, despite growing up in Maidstone, Kent, has inherited her family’s love of Manchester United. A swift and powerful striker, strong in the air and excellent at holding the ball up, Russo came through Charlton’s academy and represented Chelsea and Brighton before joining United where she scored 22 goals in 46 WSL games during her three seasons at the club. Her father Mario formerly led the line for the Met Police first XI.

Rachel Daly

Date of Birth: 6 December 1991

Position: Forward full back/midfield

Club: Aston Villa

Profile: Daly spent Euro 2022 as a left-back but heads to Australia as a prolific striker. Small wonder that, when Phil Neville managed England, he once, rather memorably, remarked “Rachel reminds me of me”. That was a reference to Daly’s highly accomplished, Chameleon style, interpretation of assorted outfield positions, most notably right-back, left-back, right midfield and centre forward. The Leeds-supporting, North Yorkshire-born, Daly cut her footballing teeth as the only girl playing for Killinghall Nomads, a junior team based in a village just outside Harrogate and crossed the Atlantic after winning a sports scholarship to study at St John’s University in New York City. She subsequently built a life in Texas where she spent six years playing for Houston Dash but returned to England last summer before scoring 22 goals in 22 WSL appearances for upwardly mobile Aston Villa.

Bethany England

Date of Birth: 3 June 1994

Position: Centre forward

Club: Tottenham

Profile: England has been rewarded for swapping life on the bench at Chelsea for relegation-threatened Tottenham in January. Twelve goals in 12 subsequent WSL games following that £250,000 domestic record transfer not only secured her new club’s league status but propelled England into Sarina Wiegman’s squad. When not busy scoring goals, she spends a high percentage of off field hours studying law in preparation for a planned post playing career in the profession. Born and brought up in Barnsley, England initially played alongside her twin sister Laura at Sheffield United’s academy before combining leading the line for Doncaster Belles with working in a fish and chip shop. A subsequent move to Chelsea resulted in her scoring 21 goals in 24 games during the 2019-20 season. At the time Emma Hayes, Chelsea’s manager called England, then the WSL player of the year, “the best English No. 9 in the country.”

Chloe Kelly

Date of Birth: 15 January 1998 (age 25)

Position: Forward

Club: Manchester City

Profile: Kelly returned from 11 months of rehab following an ACL rupture to come off the Wembley bench and score England’s winning goal in last year’s Euro 2022 final. Her iconic celebration – involving the whipping off of her shirt to reveal the sports bra beneath before helicoptering that jersey above her head – will never be forgotten and she has since had the bra framed. Kelly is the youngest of seven siblings (including five brothers and one set of triplets) and grew up in Ealing, west London honing her skills in gravel-pitched football cages. That education served the former Arsenal and Everton forward well. Her amalgam of scoring incision, scorching pace, audacious dribbling and tight control ensure Kelly is comfortable playing anywhere across the frontline. Outrageous long-range goals – dipping, swerving, worldies – are a speciality. West London councillors have recognised her Wembley winner by granting the Manchester City winger the lifelong Freedom of Ealing.

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Katie Robinson

Date of Birth: 8 August 2002 (age 20)

Position: Winger

Club: Brighton

Profile: The youngest member of the squad, Robinson was born in Newquay and grew up in Cornwall where she still loves to bodyboard and surf in her free time. After starting her career with Bristol City, Robinson joined Brighton in July 2020 but ruptured an ACL two months later, leading to almost a year on the sidelines. It took a loan stint at Charlton to get her fully back up to speed but this has proved very much a breakthrough season for a winger who, not content with helping Brighton win their fight against relegation, also collected her first four England caps. “I’m happiest when I’ve got the ball at my feet and I’m running at a defender,” says a confident, pace-suffused, wide player never afraid to demand the ball and whose only regret about travelling Down Under is that there will be no time for bodyboarding on the beaches of the Sunshine Coast.

Lauren James

Date of Birth: 29 September 2001 (age 21)

Position: Forward

Club: Chelsea

Profile: When Lauren and her older brother Reece played together for Surrey’s Epsom Eagles as children they cannot have imagined that they would end up as the first siblings to become senior England internationals in the modern era. The pair also both play for Chelsea but whereas Reece is a defender for Mauricio Pochettino’s side, Lauren is a strong, technically assured, tricky dribbling, element in Emma Hayes’s attacking equation. A Londoner capable of sashaying beyond markers with ease began her career with Chelsea, departing for stints at Arsenal and Manchester United, before returning to the club she says “has always been in my heart”. She has formed a powerful bond with the Australia striker Sam Kerr, on and off the pitch. While the pair share a similar taste in fashion and music, they have devised a joint goal celebration dictating that, whenever one of them scores, the duo shoot an imaginary basketball hoop n sync.

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