England captain Steph Houghton says England are in America for one reason only – to win the inaugural SheBelieves Cup.
Mark Sampson’s side will take on the host nation, and World Cup winners, USA in Tampa in the early hours of Friday morning before facing reigning European champions Germany in Nashville on Sunday and finally France, ranked third in the world, in Boca Raton next Wednesday.
And although the opposition couldn’t get any harder on paper, Houghton believes her side must have the belief they can come out on top against their high-calibre opponents.
USA v England
The SheBelieves Cup
12.45am GMT, Friday 4 March
Raymond James Stadium, Tampa
Live on BBC One
The 27-year-old said: "We have to believe that we’re good enough [to win the tournament]. The confidence in this squad is sky high.
"We have to have that winning mentality, like we showed against Germany at the World Cup, especially because at that time we were coming off the back of that semi-final defeat to Japan.
"The world rankings don’t lie in terms of USA, Germany and France being one, two and three.
"It’s important for us to be playing those types of teams. We shouldn’t be going into these games fearing the worst. We should be looking to get the win."
England open their SheBelieves Cup campaign against Jill Ellis’s world champions in the Raymond James Stadium in Florida.
An Alex Morgan goal gave USA victory in Milton Keynes the last time these two sides met, and the Americans have won eight of their 11 matches against the Lionesses.
Alex Morgan celebrates her winner in Milton Keynes last February
But what is even more impressive is the fact they have only lost one home match in 12 years, to China in December – a period spanning 110 matches.
Houghton said: "Playing America in America will be a fantastic occasion for us, but very challenging.
"For us to try and improve as a team and be one of the best in world football we have to be playing the best and it doesn’t get much tougher than USA.
"We know how much the fans love their women’s football over here."
Houghton went on to highlight the threat that could be posed by two of USA’s star players – Morgan and Carli Lloyd, who won the Ballon d’Or in January.
She explained: "The partnership between Morgan and Lloyd will be an interesting one for us.
"Lloyd has been fantastic and rightly so the best player in the world. Morgan likes to try and stretch you and make blindside runs.
"We know we have to be aware of those two and how they move together.
"But defensively we have recently played against other class forwards, the likes of Celia Sasic, Abby Wambach and Eugenie Le Sommer. As a centre half you relish those opportunities and there’s no better way to test yourself than against the world champions."
All FA WSL are still in pre-season, with the season set to begin on Wednesday 23 March, and England haven’t played a match since November, while in contrast USA have played six matches since the turn of the year.
But Houghton will refuse to use a lack of match fitness as an excuse for a poor result in Tampa.
She said: "A lot of the girls have had pre-season friendlies with their clubs.
"At the moment the whole squad is feeling fit, fresh and raring to go. You do miss these types of games when you haven’t played international football for two or three months.
"But we can’t use that as an excuse. It’s up to us to be firing on all cylinders.
"Hopefully we can get some really good results over here."
