England's Euro 2025 win seals Sarina Wiegman's status as all-time great coach

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

England has done it again.
Sarina Wiegman has done it again.
The Lionesses celebrated yet more history by winning back-to-back European Championship titles, beating Spain, the team that denied them a World title in Sydney in 2023, on penalties in Basel.
Their bespectacled Dutch master danced a jig of delight on the sidelines when Chloe Kelly smashed home the winning spot kick, a third-straight Euro crown instilling the same joy as the first.
After all, the 55-year-old had delivered another master stroke, putting her among the greatest coaches in the sport's history.
The bare facts are astonishing.
Weigman has coached internationally in five major tournaments: Euro 2017 and the 2019 World Cup with her native Netherlands, then the 2022 and 2025 Euros and the 2023 World Cup with England.
She has reached the final in all five of those tournaments.
No coach, male or female, has ever achieved that.
In winning Euro 2025, she has been victorious at the last three European Championships with two different countries — the only coach, male or female, to win the Euros with two different nations.
"I thought two [Euros titles] was good but she's doing well with three," Leah Williamson told the BBC.
Wiegman now has a win rate in major tournaments up over 90 per cent, with just three career losses.
It's no wonder Football Association chief executive Mark Bullingham told the BBC this week that she is "not for sale at any price".
"The most obvious difference [between the two sides] — Sarina," former England player Toni Duggan said on the BBC.
"That woman and what she has done for English football is … to win three European Championships back-to-back, one with the Netherlands and two with England, is incredible.
"She has this team fighting for each other, whether they play 1 minute, 90 minutes, it doesn't matter. This team just do it for each other and I love following them."
Another former England star, Karen Bardsley, agreed.
"It just goes to show that with self-belief and leadership, you can do anything when you have the right people around you and the right environment."
Wiegman is clearly the right person.
It's cheap and easy to say that this degree of constant success is as alien to English football fans as failure is to the Australian women's cricket team. But that makes it no less true.
"I thought we deserved it more but in the end it is not about who deserves it," Spain captain Irene Paredes told TVE.
"It is about having that bit of luck and England had that throughout the whole tournament.
"We thought we could overcome that but we weren't able to."
Luck? One woman's luck is another woman's inability to say it's done, an inability to give up that Wiegman has instilled in this squad from day dot.
During the three knockout matches in this tournament, England only led for a fraction over 4 minutes in total.
That encompasses games against Sweden, Italy and then Spain in the final — all of which went to extra time, the first time that has happened in a major women's football tournament.
To put it another way, England were in front for just over 1 per cent of the 360 minutes of game time in those matches.
Luck? Or belief?
"I don't watch movies back so often but I will probably look [at this tournament] and see some things back," Wiegman told the BBC.
"In the training sessions, everything around the team was very calm, just the games were chaotic.
"That was hard work for everyone but afterwards it was all very calm.
"This tournament, every single game has challenged us."
Calmness in the face of challenges is what sets Wiegman apart.
This could — perhaps even should — have been the tournament when things unravelled for England.
Before the side left for Switzerland, veteran keeper Mary Earps and attacking midfielder Fran Kirby both immediately retired from international football.
Defender Millie Bright — who captained England at the 2023 World Cup — then withdrew on mental health grounds.
Three key players to England's success were gone in the blink of an eye.
A defeat to France in the first game — just England's second defeat in a major tournament under Wiegman — underlined, perhaps, the issues.
It didn't matter.
Wiegman is always loath to change her starting XI, opting so often to keep the faith with her starting side. However, she responded to the abhorrent criticism of Jess Carter by taking her out of the spotlight, a decision Carter backed as the right one.
"Sarina told me before training that she was going to play me [in the final] and I was like, 'Are you sure?'" Carter said.
"That's how I felt after the job Esme [Morgan] did, but the faith that Sarina showed in me and how she believed I could go out there today meant a lot."
That pattern continued with her replacements.
At the 2022 Euros, Alessia Russo and Ella Toone were the designated super subs.
In Switzerland, that role fell to Kelly and 19-year-old Michelle Agyemang.
Every player has their stories, but Agyemang's may be the most extraordinary.
Four years ago, the piano-playing Southend High schoolgirl was a ball girl at Wembley for Sarina Weigman's third game in charge and was yet to make a senior appearance for Arsenal.
She went on to score two goals in this tournament, both of which helped rescue England from desperate situations in the knockout stages.
Kelly's story, too, is remarkable.
In the wilderness at Manchester City, resorting to public pleas to leave the club at the turn of the year, Kelly managed to orchestrate a loan switch to Arsenal and she has gone on to excel.
"What she [Wiegman] has done for me individually … she gave me hope when I probably didn't have any," Kelly said.
"She gave me the chance to represent my country again, and representing England is never a given.
"What she has done for this country and the Netherlands too is incredible. What she has done for the women's game, she has taken it to a whole new level."
Wiegman, bashful, played down her role.
"Every player has their own story. Every story is incredible. Her [Kelly's] story is out in the open and I'm so happy for her," she said.
"She loves those moments. That is her super strength, taking penalties but also doing that at the most important moment with the most consequence of being successful or not."
Penalties may be Kelly's superpower. Instilling belief in her players is Wiegman's.
Goalkeeper Hannah Hampton too, under enormous pressure to fill the boots of Earps, did so with three magical saves in the final shootout.
"All I can really say is thank you to Sarina [Wiegman] for all the belief and faith that she's had in me," Hampton said.
"She knew what I was capable of and she really put that in me to really go and showcase what I can do."
Every decision that Wiegman has made, every choice, has been spot on.
"She's just an amazing woman," Williamson said.
"She stands by us on and off the pitch. But when she makes a decision, and it's a sign of a good coach, I never question it.
"If she tells me to jump, I say how high? I think that's a sign of somebody well-respected."
Wiegman is contracted to England until after the World Cup in 2027.
The only thing missing from her trophy cabinet is a World Cup, perhaps the only thing standing between Wiegman and true sporting immortality.
But even without that trinket, her legacy deserves to stand on its own two feet.
"I hope it will push the women's game even more," Wiegman said.
"The level [of the football] went up again, the intensity of the games went through the roof.
"I hope that will boost the women's game everywhere and not only in England. I don't know what to expect now in England. I think it will just boost again."