Great Britain will take to the field in Chengdu, China, in five days as they take on China in their opening Group A match at The World Games 2025 and England and GB player Cece Green simply cannot wait.
Speaking to British Lacrosse’s Instagram channel, Green said, “I’m looking forward to playing some amazing lacrosse against some amazing teams that we've never played the likes of before. I'm also really looking forward to going to China and seeing the pandas.”
Green will be making her The World Games debut this year after breaking into the senior England team over the past couple of years, becoming a European champion in 2024. Since that competition, Green’s focus has been almost entirely on Great Britain and The World Games.
“As a team,” Green said, “we've had loads of squad weekends which have just been great and we feel like we've grown so much and I think we're very lucky to get such good support from S&C to make sure we're as fit as we can be.”
Within the Great Britain squad, Green has an extra special role as team social secretary where she is tasked with planning social excursions for the players and staff outside of playing lacrosse.
“I’ve been inspired by Claudia Winkleman to play some Traitors when we're [in China]. Also maybe Assassins, which is another very good game that we like playing, and a book club to decompress and unwind. And we'll see as the tournament goes what else we'll get up to.”
Back to the lacrosse and Green, having played the traditional 10-a-side version of the sport since she was younger, has found the transition to the sixes format fairly seamless, despite a few hiccups early on.
“I think initially it was hard because I think to be a good sixes player you obviously have to be a good attacker but you also have to be a really strong defender too.
“I think our coaches have put in some amazing work to make sure that all the straight attackers feel just as comfortable in defence and I actually love it now. I'm equally as happy when the ball is down in defence and pushing out hard, putting on lots of pressure. I feel like I finally feel really confident now which is great.”
She’s so excited about the sixes format that’ll be on show at the Olympic Games in LA in 2028 that, when asked which discipline of lacrosse she would play for the rest of her life if she had to choose, she picked sixes.
“I think it's the funnest form of lacrosse, and I feel like there's still so many more fun, creative things that we can try. Even looking at the progress that we've made over the past year, thinking about how far we could change the sport over the next few years, looks super promising.”
Green and Great Britain begin their The World Games campaign at 7:30am (UK) on 7 August in Chengdu against hosts China in Group A.
For more information about the competition, click HERE.