“TO LEAD the team onto the field as a captain was definitely a special moment that I will remember fondly forever,” recalls the now retired Celia Sasic, looking back at her own experience of leading her country in the first stand-alone women’s international football match at Wembley Stadium five years ago.

It was November 2014 and on the back of some huge Wembley Stadium attendances for women’s football at the 2012 London Olympics, the Football Association decided to give centre stage to its Lionesses in a glamour match against the reigning European champions, Germany.

It was a dream come true for the players, and not just the English ones. “Every child knows Wembley Stadium and about its very special spirit,” Sasic tells me.