England manager Sarina Wiegman has said she is “not concerned” about the Lionesses’ lacklustre form ahead of this summer’s Euros after Portugal levelled late on to draw 1-1 in their opening Nations League fixture.
Alessia Russo scored in the 13th minute to give England the lead but if it was a profligate performance from the visitors who failed to adapt to Portugal’s in-game tactics, allowing them back into the tie. They were punished for their wastefulness as Barcelona‘s Kika Nazareth equalised in the 75th minute.
Despite England’s stuttering form since the 2023 World Cup final, only winning two of their last six games, failing to qualify for the Olympics last year and finishing second in their Euros qualifying group, Weigman said that England are improving.
“It is not July now. I’m not concerned,” she told a news conference. “I’m just working really hard with the team to get things right and I think we are improving.
“If you look at the results then you might think we are not improving, but if you look at how we play in the first half performance, we are definitely moving forwards. Yes, we want to get results and it’s disappointing we didn’t win today, but as I said, it’s February now and not July. We have another opportunity on Wednesday.”
Wiegman admitted it was “frustrating” that Portugal equalised so soon after she brought her team into a huddle as goalkeeper Mary Earps received treatment on the pitch. She also said she believed her side should have had a penalty but admitted “you can’t change it anymore, you have to move on and we had more opportunities to score goals.”
The team struggled to adapt to Portugal’s change of shape and Wiegman acknowledged England needed to score more goals to give them a better chance of holding on to maximum points.
“I’m disappointed about the result,” she continued. “I think we played a very good first half and we make things a lot easier when we score more than one goal. We should have done that in the first half with the difference — been more ruthless. In the second half they changed their shape and we had to figure it out. When we did, they still scored that goal and we wanted to do better. We struggled to do our press and keep the ball. In the later stage of the second half we got momentum back but we weren’t able to score a goal anymore.”
Following the verdict that found disgraced former RFEF president Luis Rubiales guilty of sexually assaulting player Jenni Hermoso by kissing her without consent after the 2023 Women’s World Cup final, Wiegman offered her support for the Spanish players.
“I stand with the Spanish players and its really sad they have this on their path. But there is also change in society and they have so much courage to stand for this and themselves and we stand in solidarity with them. Now, we have Nations League starting tonight, we are talking about this but we should be talking about the Spanish team and how good they are at football.”
The Lionesses face Spain — who came from behind to beat Belgium 3-2 earlier on Friday — next week on Feb. 26 at Wembley Stadium in a replay of the World Cup final.
