England reach Women’s European Championship final with Wiegman’s magic touch
At this point, all evidence points to one fact: Sarina Wiegman is the Women’s Euro Whisperer.
An England team will play for the title at the European Championship finals it is hosting for the second consecutive summer after Wiegman’s Lionesses beat Sweden 4-0 in the first semi-final on Tuesday. Either Germany or France will join England at Wembley Stadium on Sunday, and whichever emerges from Wednesday’s encounter will be looking to accomplish something no team has in the last two such contests: Beat a Wiegman-coached side.
After guiding his native Netherlands to the title on home soil in 2017, Wiegman is one win away from taking another host nation to the Promised Land. Her all-time record as manager at EC 11-0-0. Her teams have outscored opponents 33–4 overall. And more importantly, she has seemed to instill the impossible “winner mentality” at her two stops, where getting over the final hurdles had previously been impossible.
England have come close to winning major silver in the past. It reached the semifinals of the last three major tournaments, falling in the 2015 Women’s World Cup to Japan, in the ’17 Women’s Euro to Wiegman’s Netherlands and in the ’19 Women’s World Cup to the United States. And that history loomed over the tournament hosts, with Wiegman tasked with molding his diverse array of talented individuals into a cohesive champion.
“I don’t want to be another player who loses in another semi-final and doesn’t make the final of a big tournament with England,” veteran forward Fran Kirby said in the run-up to Tuesday’s game. “We talked about the semi-finals we’ve lost before and it takes a long time to recover from losing a semi-final like that.
“I don’t want to experience having to take a month to get over not getting to a final. It would mean everything to reach a final with this England team.”
To Kirby’s delight, England have done just that, beating a quality side in impressive fashion to get there.
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After a few seconds on Tuesday, however, it looked like it could go the other way. Goalkeeper Mary Earps was forced to make a save in the game’s opening sequence after Sofia Jakobsson was played through following a turnover on the midfield line, and from there Sweden was on the front foot. This is a Swedish team that has won silver at the last two Olympics (losing to Canada on penalties last summer and to Germany in 2016) and is ranked second in the world. That’s the kind of team that would have taken that early momentum and made England pay for it sooner. But, as England showed in their dramatic quarter-final comeback against Spain, this is no former England team, it’s a hardened team that can take their opponents’ best shots and win in different ways. After absorbing the early pressure, a goal against the run of play changed everything.
Beth Mead gave Sweden their first deficit of the competition in the 34th minute, volleying in after settling Lucy Bronze’s cross for her tournament-leading sixth goal. Brons then scored one of his own two minutes into the second half, with a header from a corner that made its way through traffic and was supported by VAR, and from there it was effectively over.
But it was emphatically over in the 68th minute, when supersub Alessia Russo scored perhaps the goal of the tournament. After saving a clear look, she pounced on the rebound and then instinctively hit a backheel on the frame, which caught goalkeeper Hedvig Lindahl and gave England a 3–0 lead.
Kirby then put the icing on the cake by chipping Lindahl, who got a hand on the shot, but not enough to keep away. Then the result was academic.
“This result will go all over Europe and the world. It was such a performance that tomorrow everyone will be talking about us,” Wiegman said after the match. “I think we have shown that we are very resilient. I don’t think we started the match well, but we still found a way.
Sunday will mark England’s third Women’s European Championship final, and first since 2009, when they lost to Germany. A rematch could be on the cards, just as Tuesday’s match was a rematch of both the 19th Women’s World Cup third-place playoff (won by Sweden) and a rematch of the two-legged 1984 Women’s European Championship final (won by Sweden on penalties ). If the theme of this tournament is England exorcising past demons to triumph, then the script is being prepared. And as for Wiegman, England remain undefeated since she took charge, now 17-0-2 and outscoring their opponents by an audacious 104-4 in the process, taking advantage of some lopsided World Cup qualifiers to pad the overall tally.
But the level of performance needs no dressing up. This is a title-worthy England led by a coach who has the wherewithal and knowledge to provide what was previously lacking. And on Sunday, we’ll find out if the Women’s Euro Whisperer can ensure the title “comes home” for a team that has been so close yet so far from breaking into the global elite.
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