As the players celebrated their Euro 2022 win, England coach Sarina Wiegman was, amid the euphoria, dancing with her team. But at the back of her mind, she knew the players’ lives would never be the same again. Over the course of those five weeks last summer, the Lionesses made history, and with it came a spotlight brighter than ever on that group of players.
Wiegman remembers the celebrations, the party at the Lensbury hotel and getting cajoled into dancing, but she also recalls moments of clarity that evening where she processed the experience and thought about what lay ahead.
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“When the final whistle went, and we were partying, I thought, okay, now life is going to change for these players,” Wiegman tells ESPN. So the two sides of Wiegman clicked: you had the manager enjoying the success, but also the manager looking ahead to this year’s Women’s World Cup and the intervening period, knowing that for some players they were facing unchartered waters. “Winning the Euros was incredible but most of the world around the players changed a lot and you have to manage that.”
But there was a plan. There’s always a plan with Wiegman, and a solution. They had reached the summit of winning the Euros, but on the horizon, thoughts were already turning towards winning the World Cup and navigating anything and everything thrown their way.
