STEPH HOUGHTON

As captain, I want us to be ambitious; I want us to be winners - but above all, I hope we will show how much we love the game by passing the ball and achieving success through our technical and tactical approach.

For women's football in this country, it's important we do play in the best stadiums, and for me, Wembley is the best in this country.

We've got to make sure we keep the media attention on us; being on telly and in the papers gets people interested.

I want to be the best professional and the greatest role model I can be.

My family have always been supportive of my career, whether it's the highs of the World Cup or when I was just starting out.

The women's game has grown, but when I was playing at Arsenal, I don't think people realised how good we actually were. I think there's just a perception that we just play football, but we're not very good, and it was a challenge for us to try and prove those type of people wrong.

I've been playing semi-professional football since I was 14, really.

When you're training every day, recovery is so important. I find that foam rolling helps me to make sure I don't get tight anywhere so that I keep mobilised and keep on top of things.

At the end of the day, you've got a job to do, and that's playing football.

I knew there was going to be pressure on me with the captaincy. I knew people would be writing about my performances more than anyone else's, but that's not a problem because I have my dad telling me about my performance every single game, and he is my biggest critic.

I think a massive part of players wanting to stay in England was to be able to be on the ball every day, playing the sport you love, and being able to class it as a job and dedicating your whole life to it.

My all-time hero for Sunderland was Kevin Phillips. He was the one I looked up to.

It's important I keep my feet on the ground and stay humble and still work hard.

I don't practise indirect free-kicks, but the technique and how I strike the ball I practise a lot.

Twitter's brilliant. It allows us to talk to fans and gets them to games.

We want to be the best in Europe.

Serena is an icon of women's sport.

Everybody is really committed to making the women's game as good as it can be.

We want to play against the best in the world, nevermind Europe.

My role models were Kevin Phillips and David Beckham, and, for me, now girls can look up to female footballers and want to aspire to be them and try to follow in their footsteps and even be better than us.

I don't tend to carry much cash around, as I use my bank card whenever I can.

Michael Owen's wonder goal against Argentina in 1998 was one defining memory, and as a Sunderland supporter, I remember crying my eyes out after they lost that play-off final against Charlton. Much as that hurt, it made me realise how much I wanted to play the game.

It's not so long ago I was paying £250 a season to play. I don't think in my lifetime it will ever get to wage parity with the men, but we have made so many great strides already.

It doesn't get much bigger than England v. Germany at Wembley.

The support of our fans is vital to everything that we do - we always play for our country and our fans.