What next for Sarina Wiegman? A shot at the Olympics and a Lionesses dynasty

What do you do when you almost reach the summit of the mountain, lose your footing and slide back down it? When you have the character and personality of someone like Sarina Wiegman, you try even harder to climb it again.

Wiegman has not specifically said it yet, but she wants to take charge of the Great Britain team at the Olympics next year. After the agony of losing a second successive World Cup final with a second nation, having already lost to the US with the Netherlands four years ago, the 53-year-old will want that more than ever.

In women’s football, deprived of global tournament exposure for decades, a gold medal in the Olympics is the second most prestigious prize you can win behind a World Cup.

England will have to reach the final of the new Nations League competition for GB to qualify, but they have shown they are good enough.

Uefa have only just changed the qualifying criteria, to try to create interest in their glorified friendlies tournament that has already lost interest and importance in the men’s equivalent. In the past, Team GB would already be assured of going to the Paris Games as finalists at the World Cup.

Wiegman went to the Olympics with the Netherlands in Japan in 2021, but it was the Covid Games, played in empty stadiums and she was honest enough to admit she had not really enjoyed it because of that.

“Yes, of course,” she said when the prospect of going to Paris next year was raised last week. “The Olympics [2021] were a little disappointing too because it was in Covid, and it was a big dream of mine to go to the Olympics, but the Olympics wasn’t like everything, well, I said it before, it felt like a jail.

“And then also football unites, and football brings people together, and that connection was not there.”

Wiegman cannot say she wants the Team GB job, should they qualify. She has to be invited and details thrashed out with the other home nations, but that is the obvious next ambition to satisfy.

After that, it will be back to preparing for the European Championship in 2025. They should have Leah Williamson, Beth Mead and Fran Kirby back from injury. Lauren James will be a better player for her experiences, good and bad, at this World Cup. The squad will be even stronger as a result.

This group should stay together until the end of the next World Cup cycle. It makes them a threat whoever they face. As good as Spain were, England hit the bar and James was denied an equaliser by a stunning save. Fine margins. As much as this will hurt, they must stride forward towards Paris with their heads held high.

Should Team GB not play in the Olympics, Wiegman will go back to work once she has processed the disappointment and redesign things for the European assault.

She will know she made mistakes. The best managers always do. She should have started Lauren James instead of Ella Toone, who had a poor tournament and was anonymous in the final.

You do not leave your X-factor player on the bench in a World Cup final and James is England’s most exciting and explosive player. The fact Wiegman also changed the formation, as well as made two substitutions at half-time, illustrated she knew she had got it wrong initially.

So what comes next? In time, as she sits at home with her family back in the Netherlands, Wiegman will realise the answer is a relatively simple one.

When you have come so close to conquering the world, without three of your best players, you re-arm and attack again. England have their European crown to defend in Switzerland in 2025. They will be the team everyone wants to beat and will likely come up against Spain again, but if you want to build a dynasty you must win multiple tournaments, not just one and lose a final a year later.

As much as they might be interested in her, Wiegman is not interested in the US job at the moment. That could change but she has a contract until 2025 and has never broken one before. Telegraph Sport understands that she has already given her word to the Football Association that she intends to continue.

The sting of defeat in Sydney will surely cement her desire to come back and try again. She may well extend her contract until 2027 for the next World Cup and that is something the FA will be keen to do.

Wiegman has lost two finals and won the other two. England came up short, just as the Netherlands did in the biggest game of their lives. But she will not accept this as the end of the story.

This is the end of another exciting chapter, but there is another one waiting to be written. There always is. The Lionesses are still one of the best female teams on the planet. They must go again and will.