Steph Houghton hopes the English public will become besotted with women's football again this weekend when Germany come to Wembley.
Mark Sampson will face the biggest test of his reign as England Women head coach on Sunday when his team face two-time world champions Germany.
Some 55,000 fans are expected at the first women's match to be played at Wembley since the country was gripped by Olympic fever just over two years ago.
The summer of 2012 was an unforgettable, "life-changing" experience for Houghton. Prior to the tournament she had 2,000 Twitter followers and drove around in an old Vauxhall Corsa.
Now over 44,000 hang on her words on the social media website and she is the figurehead of Manchester City's heavily-backed foray into women's football.
Houghton, appointed England captain in April, will never tire of talking about London 2012.
"The Olympics is one of the memories that will always be with me. It changed my life for the better," she says.
Houghton scored three crucial goals in the group stages, but Team GB were knocked out by Canada in the quarter-finals.
Defeat hurt. Dreams of a Wembley final were crushed. But one objective had been achieved - that of recognition.
A record crowd of 70,584 turned up to watch Houghton score the winner against Brazil.
Interest in Houghton and the rest of her team-mates was at an unprecedented level.
"The Olympics changed women's football, and everyone's perception of it," the Durham native says.
"We'd be walking down to breakfast in the Olympic Village, seeing all the papers and we were on the back pages, or front pages.
"When we went to watch the final at Wembley, people were stopping us.
"We created a buzz, and it was really exciting to be part of that."
The fact that 55,000 tickets were snapped up for Sunday's friendly at Wembley shows interest remains strong.
The FA would have sold more tickets had it not had to cap sales due to construction work on the London Underground.
With no senior men's tournament on the schedule, the World Cup finals in Canada next year offer a good opportunity for interest in the women's game to reach similar heights.
Houghton knows a good performance against Germany, ranked second in the world behind the United States, could play a big part in drumming up interest in the World Cup next year.
"It is important that we play against the best teams in the world," the defender said.
"We want to create a buzz before the World Cup. We want to play at Wembley, play the best we can, try and get people on our side, so that when we do go to Canada for the World Cup we have the full support of the country back home."
England are in good form having won all 10 qualifiers en route to the finals, but Houghton knows beating Germany for the first time on Sunday will be difficult.
"In qualifying, we won all 10 games, but realistically we didn't play the standard of opposition that we might be facing in the World Cup," the 26-year-old said.
Source: PA
