England will face Spain in the quarter-finals of the European Championship on Wednesday at 22:00. The match is live on TV2, Areena and the app from 21:30. You can find everything about the European Championships on ‘s competition page here.
Winner. Best in the world. Our number one choice. Our best chance to succeed.
The advertising speeches of the English Football Association were grandiose. Two years ago Sarina Wiegman was introduced as the new head coach of the national team, and the goal could not have been set in clearer words.
A chronic underperformer wants championships. This summer, Europe’s number one, a year from now, a world power.
– I would never have dared to think that he would change Holland for England, the English Football Association Kay Cossington later told Sky News.
However, winning and success seem to follow the 52-year-old, who has whipped the Lionesses to a historic blow. There are now 17 matches under Wiegman, and not a single defeat yet. The goal balance is 98 scored and three conceded.
“He has a huge amount of confidence that transfers to the team. They have real belief and strength now.” Ex-England goalkeeper Rachel Brown
The most important thing has been to throw a new wave at the cooling stove, every predecessor Phil Neville’s threatened to chase away the saunas even before the evening dinners began. The results were in a clear decline, the defense suffered from bad leaks, and the inexperienced coach no longer had the conditions to continue towards the EC home games labeled as a must-win.
The worried British media put forward many replacement candidates, all of whom were British. In their place, 142 applicants were recruited through special recruitment from outside.
On the same ride, the culture of winning, which the women of England used to carve, was expected to arrive in the dressing room Gareth Southgate even further than last summer’s team’s achievement. To the final at Wembley Stadium, but with a happy ending.
– He was our first choice. He fits our culture perfectly, which is crucial for a winning team. She has the technical ability, leadership and winning mentality to impress, head of women’s football in England Sue Campbell praised when told about the choice.
As a surprise name for the championship coach
Johan Cruyff stands and points to his left, instructing his teammates. Ruud Gullit looks to the heavens and raises the trophy in his hands. Marco Van Basten is about to fall to the surface of the field after just scoring a historic scissor kick goal.
The headquarters of the Dutch Football Association honors the successful history of its national teams with exceptional dignity. A handful of Oranje’s most significant legends have been immortalized in bronze statues as thanks for their actions for Dutch football.
Last summer, the first woman was added to the team. Sarina Wiegman is about to take a determined step, looks ahead and claps her hands together. The coach, who as a little girl cut her hair short to be able to play in a team where girls were not allowed, had broken another glass ceiling.
The statue project was justified not only by Wiegman’s coaching achievements, but also by his distinguished playing career. The player who represented only one team as an adult won two championships in nine years. In the national team, he was the first player with 100 caps in Holland, in a period of three decades.
Above all, however, it was a symbolically important moment. That’s what Wiegman himself called it. The Dutch Football Association has invested in women and received an award for it. Five years ago, the EC home games were a jackpot and Wiegman was its face.
In terms of the future, the most important period was at the end of the 80s, when Wiegman, in his twenties, left for the United States to play for the North Carolina university team. There, he got to play alongside better players than ever before and described what he saw as a soccer paradise, the kind he hoped to create in his home country one day as well.
On his return, Wiegman had to work as a physical education teacher while playing in poor conditions and in a modest league. The playing career ended with the birth of the second child, but a few years later coaching began.
– I am so happy to see the change that happened in Holland. It feels great to have been a part of it. Girls have many more opportunities and places to play. We can be even better, but when I compare this to my beginning, the difference is incredible, Wiegman said on the Fifa website.
First, Wiegman coached his team to Dutch champion and cup winner in just over a year. At his second club, he repeated the double in 2012 and won the Cup again the following season. Later, Wiegman also served as temporary assistant coach of Jong Sparta Rotterdam, the first woman to ever coach a Dutch men’s team.
He started as Holland’s head coach in December 2016. Wiegman, who was then an assistant coach, had already been offered the job twice, but the answer was negative both times because he didn’t feel he was ready.
In the eyes of some, Holland was already ready to give up when he was finally promoted from the position of assistant coach to a position of responsibility after the team lost four of its previous five matches.
Seven months later, Holland celebrated the European Championship at their home tournament after winning all their matches.
It played entertainingly, effectively and successfully. The team was united, and the pressure of the home games was nowhere to be seen. The summer was one orange football party, the fruits of which will surely be harvested in the years to come.
In his last prestigious tournament, Wiegman took the Netherlands to the first World Cup final in its history, but the United States was better.
A balance of severity and mercy
England has the best players in the world, the best club teams in the world. It has the resources and the fans, and the corresponding expectations that the national team has not been able to meet. It has never played in a World Cup final or won a European Championship.
The traditional mood of skepticism prevailed around the project. Starting in the semi-finals of the 2019 World Cup in the summer, England lost seven times in a run of 11 matches and won just three times until Neville’s departure was announced in April 2020.
The media lamented how the team was more and more a goal stick Ellen White’s in reserve. At the age of 33, he couldn’t be a draft animal forever either. It was a perfect fit for a woman who had already gained a reputation in Holland as a coach who doesn’t talk about individuals, but about the whole.
It was no coincidence that he was immortalized in the statue specifically applauding his team with satisfaction.
– Sometimes there is an individual who can change everything, but it is short-sighted. If you want to succeed in the long term, the most important thing is to play as a team with the ball, without the ball and in changes of situation. Forwards are liked to be highlighted, but how do forwards score if they never get the ball? It all starts with the team, Wiegman told The Guardian.
Leadership was tested, for example, during the Games, when Wiegman left the national team legend by Steph Houghton – the team’s eight-year captain – out of the games, because he didn’t feel that he had recovered in time. In the same spirit, in the 2017 Games, he dropped the captaincy by Mandy Van Den Berg from the lineup in the middle of the group stage, because he saw a change as necessary.
The decision caused van den Berg to put his national team career on hold, and it was talked about in the Dutch media even two years later at the time of the World Cup.
– Disappointment is a natural part of elite sports. We are playing in the final tournament. With each solution, one is happy and the other is disappointed. That’s my job, Wiegman said in Dutch media.
Wiegman talks about joy, happiness, the pleasure of playing. An open and honest environment without cupidities or spaces of fear is the recipe for a tight-knit team. He has said that as a player he got so excited himself that the enjoyment of the experience suffered, and that he drew back his coaching philosophy from his background as a teacher. In the beginning, even as a coach, he was too harsh, but then he learned to soften his grip.
All this should not be understood as a casual round of marshmallows around an open fire – except sometimes. Keeper Hannah Hampton told the BBC that Wiegman ordered one room at training camp to be converted into a campfire around which the team could gather in beanbags on the southeast side to get to know each other better.
– From then on, everyone’s attitude and general atmosphere changed. We got closer and looked after each other. We are one huge family, Hampton beamed.
The level of demand is high, but the balance is right. England started their EC camp already in May and prepared for the tournament five days a week. On weekends, the players were free to go and relax.
– His eyes can eat fire. If he gets angry, you can see it. He doesn’t shout so that the whole stadium can hear, but he gets angry in his own way. Yet he is also really warm. He is interested in what is going on in the lives of the players, coached by Wiegman in Holland Leonne Stentler has described.
Wiegman is direct and decisive, but builds a solid coaching team around him, where every member has a say. When the conditions are dictated directly, even tough solutions are easier to accept. According to him, he does not allow internal pressures, while external pressures are closed behind the dressing room door.
England’s women have never played under the same level of expectation as they did this summer, but the players say the excitement has been conspicuous by its absence.
– Honestly, I don’t know how he does it. It’s easy for me to sit here and say there’s less tension because that’s just what it is, a midfielder Keira Walsh stated in an interview with the Guardian.
Unbeaten for the most important matches
For the English, Wiegman was a familiar face from the previous EC tournament. In August 2017, the team marched in front of 27,000 spectators to the EC semi-finals to experience a huge disappointment. Holland had already reset it in the group stage, but this time made a clear mark on their opposition with 3-0 goals.
Last summer, Wiegman’s Holland crushed Norway 8-0 in a training match. In September, he coached the first match at the helm of England, and this summer Wiegman’s England crushed Norway 8-0 at the European Championship.
Two 10-0 wins and one 20-0 win were recorded last fall. In the spring, North Macedonia was packed with goals 10-0. The most fascinating measure of the top countries was the training match against Holland in June, where Wiegman faced his former team. England also won that match 5-1, and they haven’t conceded a goal since then.
The most dominant team of the tournament so far has played with joy, happiness and enjoyment. It enters the quarterfinals on an eight-game winning streak.
The Dutchman could hardly have done more than this in the first ten months. It does not guarantee that England will finally win the prestigious tournament already this summer. In the merciless world of the playoffs, dreams can come crashing down in an instant.
However, it has already turned the atmosphere around the team. At the same time, it further strengthens the position of women playing football in a country that has acted as a trend setter for the rest of Europe.
– He has enormous self-confidence, which transfers to the team. They now have real faith and power. England have never had a manager say they are good enough to win. I hope he is the final piece of the puzzle that England need to win for the first time ever, England’s 15-year-old goalkeeper Rachel Brown said before the start of the Games.
Who will score the opening goal of the match and at what minute? Bet on the opening goal scorer of the match in Ylen Futistietäjä and you can win a technique ball.
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