It’s not always just about football for Sarina Wiegman. She does like a coat and once described how she wore a jacket at an international conference FIFA official, who expected a discussion about “an important football problem” but found that she wanted to know something about her jacket. “It was a nice brown coat,” Wiegman said. ‘And I love brown so much. Cheap too. I wanted that jacket!’
The Dutch media are delighted with how England has embraced its new adoptive national treasure, which has even cost £67. wear Marks & Spencer power pack. The idea that she succeeds Gareth Southgate was jokingly in the Volkskrant this week. The Dutch news agency ANP said Wiegman brought calm to the state of ‘bonkers’ political chaos in Britain.
The 52-year-old’s cool, rational management and reluctance to monologue when a sentence actually works seems applicable to broader challenges than delivering the English country its first international football title since 1966. knockout matches that have brought the team to Wembley is the economy of its instructions.
Sarina Wiegman has attracted attention for both her fashion and her England tactics
“I think that’s made the difference now,” said Lucy Bronze after the 4-0 victory in the semi-finals Sweden. “It’s just practical information she gives. I think she, as a Dutch person, is to the point.’
Wiegman often refers to delegation. The influence of her assistant, Arjan Veurink, on England’s tactical plan is great. Veurink seemed to succeed her as women’s manager of the Netherlands, until she approached him to follow her to England. ‘A lot of that tactical input is Arjan’, says Bronze. “Sarina makes headlines, but Arjan is also a tactical genius.”
The brief shift from 4-2-3-1 to 3-4-3 that turned Spain’s quarter-finals was certainly more nuanced than it appeared in real time. Steering half Millie Bright up front worked, although the roles of Georgia Stanway and Keira Walsh were slightly modified to provide vital balance in the middle and extra coverage.
But perhaps more important than Wiegman’s precision and relentless search for information – she only reads non-fiction books – is the confidence she instilled in her players. She was always determined to make her players in the Dutch national team less respectful of the opponent.
“Some players were always talking about how good the players from other countries were,” she said at the time. “We had to change how those players looked at themselves.” Some English players say she delivered the same message to them.
She can, of course, empathize with them in a way that Mark Sampson and Phil Neville – both hugely motivating managers – as men couldn’t. While she’s not one to regularly make big statements about the fight for sexual equality, she knows the journeys her players have taken through a sport where resources and competence have been patchy.
She, like some of this England team, had to settle for boys’ football as a child, play on a team with her twin brother, and even cut her hair short to make sure she fit in.
Wiegman played football with boys who grew up in the Netherlands because of a lack of opportunities
‘Later I sometimes wondered if my parents weren’t worried about that,’ she said a few years ago in an interview with the Dutch writer Anna Enquist for the Volkskrant. “I mean, maybe they thought I’d rather be a boy. But it wasn’t like that. When I had to run an errand and the butcher called me “young man”, I got angry. “I’m a girl!” I would say.’
She was 11 when she started a girls team in which her sister, who recently passed away, also played. When she joined a real girls’ club at age 13, most of the people she played with were much older.
In the Netherlands she has expressed the need for better quality coaching for girls and she knows this on a number of levels. She and her husband, Marten Glotzbach, also a soccer coach, raised two soccer-playing daughters.
But her awareness of the inequalities – including in this country girls have to pay to attend elite club academies, while the boys are paid to be there – has not stopped her from mining information and methods from top Dutch coaches such as Ronald Koeman, Dick Lawyer and Louis van Gaal.
The influence of her assistant, Arjan Veurink (right), on England’s tactical plan is considerable
There is also the genius Foppe de Haan, appointed by the Dutch Football Association to help her for the European Championship 2017, which her Dutch team won.
The 79-year-old de Haan, who seems to have become something of a mentor to her, brought Champions League football to Heerenveen and success to the Dutch youth teams. Like Wiegman, he wants players to think for themselves and not be tied to a predetermined playing philosophy.
‘She is a very good listener,’ says De Haan about Wiegman. “She has a good idea of football and is always honest. She never talks behind your back.’
She realizes that no two players are alike and has an intuition about which training regimens suit which players.
“Previously in camps in England we all felt we had to do the same thing all the time,” says Fran Kirby, who has struggled with illness and injury for years. ‘But everyone’s body is different, everyone’s body reacts differently to different situations.
“With my history, it takes some time to recover from certain situations. Sarina handled that very well, not just for me but for everyone.’
As a child, Wiegman (right) played on a team with her twin brother and cut her hair short to match
When Wiegman took over as manager of the Netherlands in January 2017, she started a project in which her team was asked to respond to the question ‘What do you give up for success?’ Some players spoke to the group, others made a video or sang a song.
“We had such a good laugh,” Wiegman said. ‘That way they get to know each other in a different way. We have 23 of them all different in background, interests and education. We take this into account when we explain something. People learn in different ways.’
As usual, Wiegman will not speak volumes this weekend at press conferences in which she corrects her English and only answers when she is sure she has understood the question correctly. She also won’t say why she thinks she made such an impact, though Enquist’s conclusions after an hour or so in her company have a ring of contemporary relevance.
“She’s driven,” Enquist mused. ‘Fanatical perhaps. Where would that come from? Not out of envy of men, because that would radiate a kind of feminism that immediately annoys you – and it doesn’t.
“It sounds tacky, but being in love with football inspires her to that determined ambition with which she does her job. The combination of modesty and ambition is fascinating. Both qualities are very natural. She also has a sense of humor. Can she please become prime minister?’