Sarina Wiegman has yet to fully conquer English, but now she’s determined to conquer the Spanish in Basel on Sunday. Spain came out on top when the teams met in the 2023 World Cup final, and the Lionesses boss now has a chance to take the sweetest revenge.
Wiegman has sometimes been forced to get her head around uniquely English expressions – after reacting with bafflement to the phrase “the cat’s out of the bag” during the last World Cup, her response to talk of “sub-par” England on Tuesday was to say “oh, we’re talking about golf now?!” – but she has been able to get her message across when it matters most.
“I have been here four years and it just feels like my home away from home,” she said. “I always enjoy it when I’m at work, when I’m in England I love it. It is just the people. The sporting culture, I really love the sport culture and the fans, of course.”
Some moments have been tough, but she wouldn’t trade it for the world. “I’m still learning English but yes I have [fallen in love],” she added. “Otherwise I would not be sitting here with such a smile on my face.”
This weekend marks Wiegman’s fifth straight major tournament final, but she still isn’t used to the attention it brings. She won Euro 2017 with her native Netherlands, following it up with a run to the 2019 World Cup final And she is now chasing history as she leads England into a third straight final, though some things have still taken adjusting to.
“Yeah, I do find that [attention] awkward,” Wiegman said. “Of course I find it very special too. But I do believe that everyone plays his or her part in the success.
“What I’m trying to do is bring people together in the best possible way, players and staff and the people around me are really, really good. And if they perform at their highest level, then the chance of winning a game is the highest possible. And that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Wiegman’s players have described her as a mother figure at times, and it’s a relationship she has learned to embrace. Ella Toone joked that the team “nearly killed” Wiegman through the stress of the quarter-final penalties against Sweden and last-gasp extra-time winner against Italy, and the manager agrees, but the bond between coach and squad is plain to see.
“You know, sometimes when people say about ‘the girls’ I think, do they mean my daughters, or my team,” she said. “So that’s tricky, I’m kind of a caring person so I need to, maybe that’s the part, I care about them but at the same time I’m the coach, I’m making these hard decisions at the moment so sometimes you should leave that caring and leave it up to them.”
That role involves finding a balance between spending time around the squad off the pitch and giving them their space. She says she believes “connections make a difference” – explaining that’s one of the things that has drawn her to team sports – but this tournament hasn’t passed without stress as well as joy.
When you’ve reached this many major finals, though, people listen to you. “She’s a great manager, she’s someone who we all have a lot of belief in, and we know we’re in good hands,” Toone said. “We know when we go out onto the pitch we fight for each other, but we fight for her and the staff too, and all the fans watching as well.”
In the lead-up to the final, FA CEO Mark Bullingham insisted Wiegman is not for sale at any price, and the bond she has with her players and her adopted country goes both ways. So much so that she admits she misses her players when they go back to their club sides.
“That’s what I like about the tournaments because you have more time together so you have more time to have these informal moments,” she said. “When we go into Fifa windows it’s 11 days and players come from games so you first get connected and everyone has to recover so it’s modifications all over to get ready for the game on Friday.
“So it goes really quickly, you don’t have that much time, and then they go back to club and some, there are moments where there are three weeks in between camps, but there’s also moments that you’re three months in between. And then, I’m not a person who just goes out and has a conversation where there’s no purpose. It’s nice to talk, but now it’s so formal and informal, that connections are better.”
Some things have been consistent for Wiegman, while others have changed. She recognises her English has improved, allowing her to understand more than she did when she took over in 2021, but another area of change has come in her celebrations.
Keira Walsh suggested this element has been more noticeable the longer Wiegman has been in her role, and the manager says it’s been a conscious change. “You learn more again about yourself and how you respond to things and while I’m always working on developing the team and developing or trying to help development of people, I always try to keep developing myself,” she added.
“What I really wanted to do over all these years and trying to enjoy it a little bit more. Trying to enjoy things a little bit more instead of always being so… you have to be focused in this job, you have to be focused but you need to celebrate the moments that are good, it’s really nice.”
The run to the Euros final has provided plenty of drama and plenty of emotional moments. If the Lionesses can win on Sunday, though, we might well witness the kind of celebration from the boss that none of us have seen before.
