How Wiegman has England on the brink of World Cup glory

SYDNEY — Five minutes after England had booked their place in the 2023 Women’s World Cup final with a 3-1 win over co-hosts Australia, the players came together for a huddle in the middle of the Stadium Australia pitch. As the home crowd saluted their defeated team, coach Sarina Wiegman stood facing the Lionesses, raised her voice above the surrounding noise and told them how proud she was, how they’d carried out her game plan perfectly, how they took the life out of the home support and controlled the game.

As “Sweet Caroline” played out from the speakers, the second she’d stopped speaking, the team started to celebrate again. But Wiegman’s brain had already switched to the final. “We started jumping up and celebrating,” 31-year-old defender Lucy Bronze recalls. “[Wiegman] grabbed me and said, ‘Stop jumping, you need to get ready for the next game, let the kids do it. You stand still.'”

It’s been a tournament where every sinew of Wiegman’s coaching pedigree has been stretched. But despite the setbacks, her pedigree has shone through. On Sunday, she’ll be contesting her fourth major final in a row — her second with England (having won Euro 2022) after two with Netherlands (Euro 2017 winners and World Cup 2019 runners-up) — which is frankly a ridiculous record and has unsurprisingly seen her linked with the England men’s coaching position, as well as the USWNT job.

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“She’s a phenomenal coach; she’s a genius. She doesn’t get enough credit; she’s great to play for,” defender Rachel Daly says. “Great to work under, she’s so honest and her knowledge about the game is a joke [it’s so good], as is everybody’s on the staff. They work so hard behind the scenes to make us the best prepared we can be, and you can see that.”

Ellen White, now retired, was England’s striker during Euro 2022 and summed up Wiegman’s impact. “In Sarina we trust,” she told the BBC after the win over Australia. “She was the manager that helped me achieve my dream of winning the Euros and we waited so long for a manager like her, to bring something different, to bring communication, togetherness [and] a philosophy that England fans could buy into, and the players could buy into, and get us to the final and win something.”

What makes her great

The plans for a potential run at the 2023 World Cup started germinating as soon as the Euro 2022 trophy was secured. In the days after, Wiegman looked at the hurdles facing the team. The first was qualification (though that proved to be elementary), and then it was the changing faces in the squad, with White and Jill Scott retiring and needing to be replaced. There were also the unpredictable aspects: player injuries, form and building the depth necessary to go deep at a major tournament. Then there was the blinding spotlight of fame and an influx of commercial opportunities brought about by the Euros win, which propelled the players into levels of fame few had ever experienced.

Wiegman talked to ESPN about this before the World Cup started and, after their semifinal win over Australia, she revisited the theme. “The expectation in England has been high all the time,” she said. “But after winning the Euros, it went up, but I also think the lives of the players has changed a lot. They really had to adapt to a new life which bring lots of very good things, but also some challenges because everyone wants something from you. You still have to perform and we always said performing brought us to where we are right now and performing will keep us where we are. And that’s what we are trying to do.”

Talk to the players and they point to Wiegman’s people-management skills as one of the reasons why she’s so successful. “Sarina gives so much confidence in terms of ‘you can do this’ and you don’t actually have to overthink or think about anything because your actions can speak louder than what’s going on,” midfielder Georgia Stanway says.

Striker Alessia Russo adds: “The first thing that comes to my mind is that she’s a winner. She sets the standards so high in training and she leads with real class. It’s great for us because it’s so competitive and everyone is so focused on one goal, but away from the pitch she lets us relax, which is so important. She’s honest and up front and as a player I respect that. It’s nice to have honest conversations.”

Having met Wiegman’s family during the tournament, Stanway says, laughing: “Sometimes you don’t realise that your head coach is actually human. It’s nice to see that.” Wiegman encourages players to take risks — she insists “everyone makes mistakes, but you have to take action and accept the mistakes, but take action again” — while her cool and calm in-game management resonates with the players on the pitch.

Jill Ellis is the only manager to defeat Wiegman at a major tournament, when she guided the USWNT to their World Cup win over Netherlands in 2019. And the admiration goes both ways between the two. “I think her player management [is brilliant],” she says. “You can see the players are invested and connected to her, which I think as a coach you want to get the best out of your players, so her player management is exceptional.”

Not afraid to change her plans

Away from the day-to-day management is Wiegman’s meticulous detail to short- and long-term planning. She sees a World Cup journey as a series of unpredictable events that she has a plan for.

England came into this World Cup amid instability and turbulence within the squad, as the players were upset with the FA over the ongoing dispute over bonuses and commercial strategy. On the Tuesday before the tournament they issued a collective statement announcing a pause on discussions with the FA, but said they were “disappointed” with the prolonged negotiations.

Wiegman also had to deal with uncertainty over release periods before the tournament started. Then there were the absentees: Beth Mead injured an ACL in December, Leah Williamson tore an ACL in April, and Fran Kirby didn’t recover from a knee injury in time. All three were unavailable. Captain Millie Bright was also an injury doubt with a knee injury, but Wiegman kept the faith and named her in the squad.

By the time England lined up against Haiti in their opening game on July 22, Wiegman had a new-look team compared to the one that won the Euros, though in a familiar formation: 4-2-3-1. England edged through that game 1-0 but came under scrutiny in the process. They were expected to dominate Haiti but, as this World Cup has showcased, the gap between the dominant nations and the chasing pack is closing.

Then came the first curveball in the second group game, another 1-0 win, against Denmark. Keira Walsh, arguably England’s most important player, went off with what looked to be a serious knee injury. Questions were raised over how England could replace her but, behind the scenes, Wiegman and her coaching team were already unhappy with how the team were performing. The coach listened to feedback from assistant Arjan Veurink and a change to a back three was made.

“Arjan came to me and said, ‘Sarina, let’s sit down, isn’t this the time to go to 3-5-2?'” she said. “I said, ‘You’re completely right, this is the moment that now, with how the squad is built, and the players available, we can get more from the players and their strengths in this shape.’ So then we changed it.” England won their final group game 6-1 against China and didn’t look back.

“Sarina always says we are adaptable and that’s what we showed,” Daly says. “It was a different formation, a different style, different personnel and dealing without Keira. Sarina showed she can deliver again on the big stage and have the bravery to make decisions like she did.”

Wiegman frequently reiterates the importance of Veurink to everything they’ve achieved, bringing him into the discussion whenever she’s asked about her success.

“We complement each other really well,” she says. “We have the same vision of football and people, how we want to treat people because we’re working with people. At the beginning I did most things myself but then over the years we made that shift. He executes the things that we talk about. We know how we think. We trigger each other and we’re very critical too so that keeps us sharp. That helps. I think we have a very, very good partnership and I hope we work together for a much longer time.”

The players also love working with Veurink. “He’s a great guy — very reserved,” defender Alex Greenwood says. “I really get on with him. He loves football as much as I do and his knowledge of the game is incredible.”

Greenwood’s defensive partner Jessica Carter adds: “Arjan is great. He thinks he’s quite funny. Thinks he’s a jokester. I think he’s great. He and Sarina work really well together.”

The shift to a 3-5-2 formation was a bold ploy, especially mid-tournament, but it drew praise from all corners. “She’s got an incredible sense of utilising her players, adjusting if she needs to adjust, having flexibility — you can see she’s a collaborative manager, she works with her staff you can see that,” Ellis told ESPN. “She’s a very complete manager in terms of managing her players, tactics, game plans.”

Excellent in adversity

A change in formation is all very well, but you find out a lot about your team in the knockout stages of a major tournament. The round-of-16 win over Nigeria was tough as England had to play with 10 players for extra time after Lauren James was sent off for standing on an opponent (picking up a two-match suspension as a result), then keep their nerve in a penalty shootout. After that came a hugely physical test in the 2-1 win over Colombia that saw them seal progress to the semifinals.

“They’ve had to come through a shootout, injuries, suspensions — that’s the sign of a good team,” Ellis says.

Facing co-hosts Australia was a perfect test of Wiegman’s ability to control pressure and block out noise. Despite the tight turnaround, the team’s schedule remained largely unchanged, meaning players knew when their families could visit and when they’d have time to talk to those back home. Her experience told her to keep everything as normal as possible.

“What she’s done over the past three, four, five years in terms of consistency of knowing what it takes to get teams into finals is exceptional,” Ellis says. “She’s quite extraordinary in her ability within the tournament to manage the games.

“Tournament football is unique because nearly every single game is a knockout game as you’ve got to win to get through. I think when you go into those moments you can’t just go in and not be prepared and I see an incredible amount of preparation and detail in the England team and the setup. I saw a similar level of detail with Netherlands so it’s part of her DNA.”

England coped with the hostility of a packed Stadium Australia to defeat the Matildas. All the roles in the 3-5-2 paid off: Lauren Hemp and Russo were lethal up front; Ella Toone came in and flourished in a midfield with Walsh and Stanway; on the flanks Daly and Bronze got through a lot of work, while the back three of Greenwood, Bright and Carter stood firm with Mary Earps resolute in goal.

It was a masterclass, but Wiegman deflected all the praise. Instead, she looked ahead to Spain and Sunday’s final. “When you go to the next game, you’re only thinking ‘OK, what’s next, what can we get in front of us, what challenges can we expect, how are we going to prepare the team?’ We’re already working on that because we did the recovery and now we’re getting ready for Spain, no, and I don’t want to relax, I just want to get ready.”

What’s next?

After Euro 2022, Wiegman went on a camping holiday with her family. Whatever she has planned after this tournament, she’ll keep it close to her chest. She’s incredibly private, separating her personal life from work life, but after the Euros she paid tribute to her sister who passed away three weeks before the start of that competition.

“I feel very privileged to work with this team. It has been so great,” she said. “You have some setbacks with some players that got injured, which was very sad for them, but then you have to switch and say, ‘OK, this is the group of players we think are the best and this is the team now. We are going to go to the World Cup with them.’

“Then of course there are still things in my personal life. When someone passes away who is really close to you, you don’t just say, ‘Oh it’s two months now, it’s gone.’ I have strategies but of course sometimes that’s still sad and it is challenging for me too.”

Sunday offers the chance for the Lionesses to join Sir Alf Ramsey’s men’s team of 1966 and end England’s 57-year wait for a World Cup win. Wiegman is aware of the weight of expectation and history, but she isn’t getting carried away while there’s work still to do.

“When we started working in September 2021, I felt that the country was so desperate to win a final in a tournament,” she says. “Everyone was saying that and the players too. I thought: ‘It’s very real.’ What do we have to do to win and how can we win? Well, to get the results, stop talking about the result because we know what we want. So, let’s be at our best on Sunday and try to be successful.

“We are in a very, very good place. We have grown into this tournament and the players feel very comfortable. They feel confident. We have recovered really well. We have everyone fit. So we are really ready to go.”