earning a 1-0 win<\/a> in a repeat of the finals at the previous tournament and Euro 2025.<\/p>\nIt was a significant occasion that proved once again England\u2019s ability to perform against the strongest opponents, and why they should be among the contenders to lift the ultimate prize at Brazil\u2019s tournament in 2027.<\/p>\n
Wiegman was quizzed over her preparations for the big game in terms of being effective from set pieces, where her team hasn\u2019t had the best conversion rate compared to open play over the past three tournaments.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cWe review our set plays and we try to improve. We watch clips and we have conversations with players, sometimes in small groups [where] you get more feedback, sometimes with the whole team.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThen we go out on the pitch again and we train, sometime they take some corners \u2013 things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t just the corner from Alex Greenwood that gave England a crucial victory, with Hannah Hampton making a \u201cworld class\u201d save to deny substitute Edna Imade\u2019s header \u2013 also from a set piece \u2013 in the final minute of normal time.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe had a save against Iceland were we really dominated the game, but it was still 1-0\u201d, Wiegman recalled. \u201cTonight she had that crucial save also, so that\u2019s really nice to have in the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the games we\u2019ve played recently, we\u2019ve had a lot of the ball ourselves. This demanded something different from us than we\u2019ve shown, and I think we did that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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England could afford possession hungry Spain the majority of the ball throughout the encounter by keeping compact and providing plenty of threat on the counter, all the while Sonia Berm\u00fadez made several changes to try and break them down.<\/p>\n
Wiegman was pleased with how her game plan was executed, saying: \u201d It always helps when you score quick because it gives a boost, so that was really nice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the game plan worked [in] both halves, although we would really love to have the ball a little longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey put different personnel in and went a little more direct, and tried to change the game with other personnel. Lucy [Bronze] had to make that header, [and] that challenge definitely.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Although their victory over the world number ones is indeed quite the statement, the Lionesses manager already has her sights set on getting results out of Iceland \u2013 their 500th competitive fixture \u2013 as well as Ukraine and tonight\u2019s reverse fixture.<\/p>\n
Wiegman said: \u201cIt\u2019s a very good result and we\u2019re really happy, but we need to keep that significance by getting a result next Saturday, and then we have Ukraine and then we play Spain again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the age of set pieces, it was from a corner that Lauren Hemp volleyed home the Lionesses\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3398,751,3400,2383,3399,3379,2379,3397,17,3396,3323],"class_list":{"0":"post-4802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-alex-greenwood","9":"tag-brazil","10":"tag-edna-imade","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-hannah-hampton","13":"tag-lauren-hemp","14":"tag-lionesses","15":"tag-set-pieces","16":"tag-spain","17":"tag-wiegman","18":"tag-womens-world-cup"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}