“I’m just me,” says Sarina Wiegman. It is not quite that simple, though – a lot has come from the England manager “just” being herself. The reigning Fifa coach of the year and three-time winner of that award has achieved a lot in her chosen profession. With success, including back-to-back European Championship titles with the Netherlands in 2017 and England in 2022, has come a broadening of her influence, too.
“I think about the bigger picture a little more, absolutely,” she says, when asked whether she spends time thinking about the wider role she can play. “But my main focus stays on my job. With that job, doing well in that job, then you get those opportunities, and I’m aware of that.”
It is hard to separate the two: without the medals there is no platform. But the perspective of what matters most, what she can be proud of, has shifted. “I really love the medals but what I’m proud of most, absolutely most, is that now young girls have perspective, young girls can play football and young girls can wear shirts [with players’ names on],” says the 53-year-old. “When you go to the grocery store and people tell you: ‘My daughter was wearing that shirt but my son is wearing that shirt now too,’ we’ve changed society. I think that’s the change that I’m proud of the most. I didn’t have opportunities [as a young girl]. I have two daughters, they played football in mixed teams when they were younger, and it was normal. Things are changing, but there is still a long way to go.”
Wiegman realised she could be a part of driving change through football when she played at the University of North Carolina (UNC) as a teenager. “It was an absolute trigger for me,” she says. “When I went back to the Netherlands, I thought: ‘If I can contribute in the Netherlands, to create what is in the US in the Netherlands, I would be a happy person.’ It took 20 years.”
The England captain, Millie Bright, made her long-awaited return in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Canada on Friday. Bright has not played for England or Chelsea since injuring a knee in March but featured in the 0-0 draw with the Olympic champions.
In England's final World Cup warm-up game before they face Haiti on 22 July in Brisbane, 21 of the 23 players featured, with Bethany England and Ellie Roebuck absent. The number of minutes Bright played in what was not an official match has not been released.
The teams played two 45-minute halves and had unlimited substitutions, including scope to roll on and off. Suzanne Wrack
They are still building in the Netherlands. “We started with the Eredivisie in 2007. We had teams, they say they were professional but that depends on how you describe professionalism. I describe it as training every day, having better facilities, have a good programme, being able to choose football. And having gym sessions. When I played, I created my own gym sessions because they weren’t there. So I just did it myself. Now we create it and it’s facilitated.”
Wiegman has loved football for as long as she can remember. “I don’t know why. I loved sports, so I did so many different sports, but it was always football. As a little girl, when I was five or six years old, girls were not allowed to play football, but I just liked football and my parents never made any fuss. They just said: ‘If you want to play football, you’re going to play football.’ I knew in elementary school that I wanted to be a PE teacher. That’s very strange too, but I just wanted to be involved in sports. I didn’t know I could be a coach because there was nothing for women in football – I couldn’t see it, so I didn’t think it was an opportunity.”
In 1988, aged 18, Wiegman was part of a Netherlands side invited by Fifa to compete in the Women’s Invitation Tournament, essentially a prototype World Cup. It was her first taste of such a competition. “Oh, I loved it,” she says, with a big grin. “That experience taught me: this is what I want. That was nice, we got an invitation to go to China, and we weren’t great but when we got into the tournament we actually did really well. We could have beaten Brazil … but there weren’t very many opportunities then.”
She was spotted there by the UNC head coach, Anson Dorrance, who was also the manager of the US women’s national team. “What I remember from it was I said: ‘I quite want to go to the US,’ and he said: ‘OK.’ Because in the Netherlands we were not accepted and I’d heard in the US that it was a big sport, it was accepted, and that the level was high.”
It was “absolutely not” possible for Wiegman, who swapped the Netherlands for England and is now preparing for a first World Cup, to have imagined then how big the tournament would become.
“It’s totally changed, and really quickly,” she says. “Even when I was older, even 20 years ago, I would not ever have expected or not even dreamed that I would be in this situation, that in women’s football we would be in a situation now where we are, or even that I would be in a situation where I am now. That’s why I enjoy it so much too, because I’m so grateful that things have changed so quickly. There’s still a long way to go, but how it grew [and moved] so many steps forward, I’m just very grateful for that.”
Last summer, after Wiegman’s Lionesses had stormed the Euros, she watched as her players organised to make their own change off the pitch, calling on the prime ministerial candidates to back equal access to sport in schools, which Rishi Sunak’s government has committed to.
“I’m incredibly proud of their social consciousness,” Wiegman says. “It’s so powerful, so strong, and they articulate themselves so well. And they were ready the day after the final to put that letter in … wow. There’s so much leadership in this team. They really want to have a positive impact on society and make positive change. And I think they’ve done really, really well because things have changed.”
Wiegman is just Wiegman, a football coach, and the players have to “just” be themselves too, because without performances, there is no platform. “Now what we try to do,” Wiegman says, “is keep performing, and keep being visible, and using our voices to sustain and make more positive changes.”
