Wiegman knows what it means to be under the spotlight, having led England to back-to-back major tournament finals.<\/p>\n
When you have set that standard, anything less is a disappointment.<\/p>\n
England’s level dropped dramatically against France which increased scrutiny on Wiegman, who suffered her first defeat at a Euros after winning 12 games in a row over the previous two tournaments.<\/p>\n
It was also the first time the reigning women’s European champions had lost the first match of their defence at the following finals.<\/p>\n
Wiegman admitted the scrutiny was “hard” but she focused on the task in hand.<\/p>\n
“I always knew ahead of this tournament that it was a very hard group. It can happen but then you need to win the other games,” she said.<\/p>\n
“So yes, I was excited, but at the same time I felt a little tense too. I think that’s completely normal as you really want to stay in the tournament and you want to win.<\/p>\n
“I just had to focus on my job, review well and think about how we could bring people together.”<\/p>\n
Wiegman has often delivered in the big moments and no manager has won more Euros matches than the Dutchwoman (13 – level with Germany’s former manager Tina Theune).<\/p>\n
She also boasts the best goals-per-game rate in the competition among managers to take charge of four or more matches, with her sides scoring 40 in 14 games.<\/p>\n
Having come under criticism for her decision to start Lauren James in the number 10 role against France – which left England vulnerable defensively – Wiegman made all the right choices against the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
James started on the right wing, with Manchester United’s Ella Toone starting in the number 10 role. They scored three of the four goals on the night.<\/p>\n
Jess Carter, who struggled against France at left-back, was moved into central defence, swapping with Alex Greenwood, and England kept a clean sheet.<\/p>\n
“The priority was that we wanted to skip and exploit space. The Netherlands pushed up so we wanted to go over them. That worked really well,” said Wiegman.<\/p>\n
“When you’re in their half of the pitch, you can start playing. We had some nice crosses and we spoke about that too.<\/p>\n
“[James] came in good positions but she can also do that in midfield. In midfield today we wanted Ella [Toone] because she can make good runs in behind.”<\/p>\n
The plan worked.<\/p>\n
Netherlands striker Vivianne Miedema had just eight touches in the first half and the Dutch conceded more than two goals in a single match at a major women’s tournament for the first time.<\/p>\n
They also managed just four shots against England – their fewest on record (since 2011) at a major tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wiegman knows what it means to be under the spotlight, having led England to back-to-back major tournament finals.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[94,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-252741","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114827455631136370","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}