Leah Williamson reveals what she would give up to win the Women’s World Cup

Williamson is currently fronting the ‘Momentum’ campaign, which is being run in partnership with immersive football entertainment venue TOCA Social. The aim of the campaign is to drive participation in the women’s game, and if the Lionesses can win the World Cup for the first time, it will build on the legacy created by their Euro 2022 success.

“I’d give my other ACL for England to win the World Cup,” she said. “That’s what I’ll believe in until it isn’t (possible).”

England’s incredible tournament victory last year has already resulted in an increase in the number of young girls playing football – but there is still a way to go. TOCA Social’s ‘Momentum’ campaign will allocate a set number of playing boxes for women at London’s O2 with a dedicated ‘women’s hour’ with the aim of bringing a minimum of 50,000 women to the venue to participate in the game.

26-year-old Williamson wishes there were similar opportunities when she was growing up. “If I’d have had something like this, it would have been better for me,” said Williamson. “I didn’t want to go down to the park and get muddy if I was going to get muddy at the weekend, I just wasn’t that kid, I didn’t want to be out until all hours on the street. If I’d have had something like this, I’d have lapped it up.”

The Lionesses are likely to go into this year’s World Cup as second favourites behind the USA and Williamson added: “Before every tournament you sit down as a team and you outline the goals and what you want to achieve. And different things have come up – be the number one team in the world, winning is obviously up there, but the thing that always comes up is to leave a legacy.

“We realised in the Euros we knew that the biggest impact we could have would be if we won, then it gets to us being in a position to win it and it was like, ‘What are we going to do now for the legacy?’ and that was more important to all of us.

“We’d opened all of these doors for young girls, they need to be able to walk through them and know that they can and those two things together are what we’ll look back on in 15 years’ time.

“I’ll remember those moments and remember the party we had after we won, but that is what will stick with me, that’s what we did and that’s what we left behind.”