England boss Sarina Wiegman expressed her pride in her players’ efforts after the European champions secured World Cup qualification with a 2-0 away victory over Austria.
Returning to action just over a month on from their Euros triumph, the Lionesses needed a point in Wiener Neustadt to seal top spot in Group D and a place at next summer’s showpiece in Australia and New Zealand.
They ended up with all three following a seventh-minute finish from Alessia Russo – brought into the side as a replacement for retired record scorer Ellen White – and a Nikita Parris strike to wrap things up with around 20 minutes to go.
England have completed the job with one group game remaining, Tuesday’s encounter with Luxembourg at the bet365 Stadium.
Wiegman said: “I’m happy that we qualified today, that we had a win, conceded no goals, scored two, which is one more than we did in the other two games (England beat Austria 1-0 in the reverse fixture last November and in the Euros group stage). So that’s nice.
“It was again a hard game, but coming out of the Euros, not having that much rest, I’m very proud of the team that we came out like this and we just won the game. It looks so easy but I think it was pretty hard.
“It is absolutely a relief. We also know that if we weren’t successful today, possibly we would qualify on Tuesday. But you don’t want that. You want to win every game, play well every game. You want to show how good you can play, and I think lots of parts in the game we did that today, and we had some parts where we weren’t tight enough and made some mistakes, and they created some chances.
“But still 2-0 is 2-0, we’re qualified and we had a great qualification (campaign).”
It made it nine wins from as many games in the group for England, who are unbeaten in 21 matches overall under Wiegman, winning 19.
Asked if she could remember what it was like to lose, the Dutchwoman laughed and said: “Of course you remember, but you never get bored with winning.”
When asked about talk of England being among the favourites for the World Cup, she said: “We knew that was going to happen, I think everyone was talking also that we were the favourite of the Euros.
“I think England has always been seen as one of the best countries worldwide and yes, of course, we know that’s the case, but we are just trying to do the things we have to, play football and trying to become better every day, and stay connected as a team.”
