Sarina Wiegman tells her England side we can be ‘so proud of ourselves’ after the painful World Cup final defeat to Spain, admitting it’s ‘hard to accept’ but insists the Lionesses ‘gave it their all ‘
England coach Sarina Wiegman admitted the pain of losing the World Cup final was hard to bear, but insisted her players should be proud of their efforts.
“It is now difficult to accept and of course we have done everything, we have given everything,” said an emotional Wiegman. “We have overcome many challenges and we have done everything we can to win.
“It happens in sport, but what we’ve done, how we’ve shown ourselves, who we are, how we want to play as a team, I think we should be so proud of ourselves.
“Obviously it feels very bad and we are very disappointed.
‘We can be very proud of ourselves, although it doesn’t feel that way at the moment, it takes some time. The disappointment is how you feel.’
Sarina Wiegman insisted England give everything they had in their World Cup final defeat to Spain
The England boss admitted that Spain were the better side at Stadium Australia on Sunday
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Wiegman has now lost back-to-back World Cup finals, with her Dutch side being beaten by the United States in 2019.
When asked if her second final defeat was worse than the first, Wiegman replied, “I’m just hurt about this moment. Losing a match and being in a final, if you’re in a final you want to win it. This was a different game, a different team.
“I was fully convinced before the game that it was going to be a very tight game, but we were confident that we could win this one.
“Spain was just a little bit better than us today and they had a great tournament.”
Wiegman believed England had the momentum when goalkeeper Mary Earps, who was awarded the Golden Glove, saved a second-half penalty from Jenni Hermoso.
“They got the penalty and when Mary saved it I thought, ‘Okay, now we’re going to score a goal and make it 1-1’, but we didn’t.
“Obviously it was a crucial moment when she stopped that penalty and I actually thought we had the momentum, I was really convinced of that.
“Mary’s performance was really good, she’s made crucial saves in many games in this World Cup and before.”
She added that she thought the momentum of the final had turned after Mary Earps’ penalty save
Wiegman compared her disappointment to the defeat of the Netherlands in the 2019 final
Wiegman has a contract until Euro 2025 and hopes to reach another final with this team, but does not want to say whether she wants to extend her stay until the 2027 World Cup.
“Four years is a long time,” she said. “We have a short turnaround time, but we will start in September with Scotland and the Netherlands in the Nations League to qualify for the Olympics.
“You want to keep getting better. That’s what I see, this group of players want to be successful so badly, so every next moment we want to grab and get better. Growth is one of the things that is really in this team.
“I hope I get another moment with the team I work with, that would be great because it’s very special to play finals.”