Laura Bassett: Girls more talented than me dropped out of football & first impressions are huge | OneFootball

"Football again, Mummy?"

These are the words that former England defender Laura Bassett is getting used to hearing from her four-year-old daughter, not yet grasping why a mother who was raised around football and has made a career from the sport is always keen to put on any game being shown on television.

"She'll give the ball a good whack in the garden, we've got a goal. She loves wearing the kits," Bassett says to 90min of Saede, whose father is also Manchester United Women manager Marc Skinner.

"But it's so interesting. If I said we're going to do this and run here, throw and catch the ball, she's a bit [disinterested]. But if she makes up the rules and throws and catches it, the enjoyment is through the roof, like if she also sets up a goal for herself.

"I don't try and push it on her," Bassett explains, wary of inadvertently having the opposite effect. "In spite of parents, she'll not like football, so I want to avoid that at all costs. Hopefully at school she'll get opportunities and find her [own] way."

Opportunities to give football a go at school are exactly what young girls have increasing access to.

England's win at Euro 2022 last summer was a historic moment for women's football in the country in more ways than one. Not only was it a first major international trophy for the Lionesses, it raised the profile of the women's game enormously and left a legacy of inspiration.

Sport England's most recent Active Lives survey revealed there are 100,000 more girls playing regular football than five years ago. Similarly, in the three months that followed the Euro 2022 final last July, England Football reported a 196% increase in women's and girls' football session bookings.

Straight after the final, the victorious Lionesses