The former England forward Toni Duggan has retired from football at the age of 33, saying she is proud to have played a part in “changing the perception of women’s football in this country”.

Duggan, who won 79 caps and helped the Lionesses reach World Cup and European Championship semi-finals, said she had been driven by wanting to prove the women’s game’s quality. She started and finished at Everton and also played for Manchester City, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid.

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Speaking to the Guardian in her only newspaper interview regarding her decision to retire, Duggan cried tears of happiness when talking about spending more time with her 18-month-old daughter, Luella. “I’m really content with what I’ve achieved and everything I’ve given to the game. Over the summer I have been going back and forth thinking: ‘Should I carry on?’ And I know physically I can still play for maybe two more years but I weighed up the pros and the cons, for myself and Luella, what’s best for us both. I had interest from [clubs] around the world, but it was definitely the right time.

“It was a massive achievement for me coming back after giving birth to Luella and playing last season, but when you weigh up the opportunities and ‘where next’, I have to take into consideration both me and her, and nothing really felt right. So now’s the time to hang my boots up.”

Duggan returned to top-flight action with Everton last season in the final chapter of a superb career in which she won an FA Cup and League Cup in her first spell with Everton, the Women’s Super League, an FA Cup and two more League Cups with City, three domestic cups with Barcelona and a Spanish Super Cup with Atlético. She said her contribution to City’s unbeaten, title-winning season of 2016 was the best and “most settled” part of her career.

That came while she was a key part of a rapidly rising England team who had finished third at the 2015 World Cup – where the Lionesses went beyond the quarter-finals of a global tournament for the first time – and reached the semi-finals of Euro 2017. Reflecting on the bronze medal, Duggan said: “I think it changed the perception of women’s football in this country, the way the country got behind us, the way we performed, the personalities we had in the squad. That generation of players pushed the game to new heights and made the whole nation start recognising women’s football for what it is.”

In July 2017 she was the subject of a landmark transfer, becoming the first England footballer to play for Barcelona for 31 years since Gary Lineker. She admitted she had never thought the move possible much earlier in her career because she “didn’t know Barcelona had a women’s team”, and said: “Just flying over there, doing my medical, rubbing shoulders with the likes of [Lionel] Messi – who would have thought a little Toni Duggan would ever be over there? It was more than I could ever imagine.”

Duggan started playing football in the street on Merseyside with her brothers and chuckled as she said: “They wouldn’t let me join in most of the time. I had to fight. I had to prove a point constantly to them that: ‘I’m good enough. Let me play.’

“Throughout my career I was always trying to prove a point to everyone. That’s what drove me. I always wanted to prove women’s football is good. I wanted to go to Barcelona to prove that you can go abroad and still be successful. Then I wanted to prove a point that you can have a baby and play at the elite level.”

After she became pregnant in 2022, Duggan said female players deserved much clearer information about what was available to them and said it was “crazy that it had taken so long” for maternity conditions to be added to contracts. Now she hopes additional support will follow and points to recent examples such as Milan becoming the first club in Europe to guarantee contract renewals for players who become pregnant in the final year of their deals. “There have been subtle improvements, [such as] clubs automatically giving contract extensions, which gives you security, which didn’t happen in my case. But there’s a long way to go. But that [conversation] is for another time. Many other aspects of the women’s game can still be improved but the level the game is at now makes me proud.”

Beyond looking forward to eating a roast dinner with her family on a Sunday afternoon, Duggan said she has not decided what she will embark on next but that she had enjoyed punditry and was open to more of that, and would like to pass on advice to young players.

“I can sit here now saying: ‘I don’t want to do coaching,’ but 10 years from now I might be a manager,” she said. “You don’t know. I don’t want to say ‘never’ to any opportunities. Would Alex Scott have predicted where she’d be now? Same for Jill Scott, Karen Carney, Isobel Christiansen.”

It is clear she already has her favourite role: being a mum. “She does make it [retiring] easier. She’s given me a focus now and a direction. After this, even if I just be a mum, that’s the best job in the world.”