Sarina Wiegman vows England will do Dutch no favours on ‘strange but special’ return to her homeland

When Sarina Wiegman left her job as Netherlands head coach in 2021, her stock could scarcely have been higher. She had led the Dutch to their first major women’s trophy and their first Women’s World Cup final. Sound familiar?

Fast forward just two years and she has achieved the same two feats with England with remarkable similarity and, if it is possible, she is now held in even greater acclaim here as her first homecoming as Lionesses head coach arrives.

Wiegman admits it feels strange but also “very special” to be taking on her former side on Dutch soil, speaking at Monday’s pre-match press conference in Utrecht, where she faces her first competitive meeting with her old team in the Nations League.

The 53-year-old will not be doing any favours for her old friends, however, adding: “If we are not playing the Netherlands then of course I want them to do well but, tomorrow, we are playing against them and we want to win the game. I can turn that off, I have to, it’s my job. I want the Netherlands to have the best but we want to be first in the league.”

Utrecht’s Stadion Galgenwaard, the venue for Tuesday’s fixture, was the scene of the Netherlands’ opening victory of their Euro 2017 campaign against Norway, which Wiegman’s old team won 1-0 and she recalls seeing “tonnes of people in orange”. Asked how it felt to be back, she replied: “It’s very nice! It’s a little bit strange too.

“It’s just very special to be here. Of course we know each other really well. I know most of the staff, the players. When we arrived here, [there were] some memories that came back. But we have a big game tomorrow so we have to focus on that game.”

Wiegman has a full squad of players available to her and has welcomed Arsenal’s Alessia Russo back into contention for the team after giving the striker some extra rest last week, in view of Russo’s speedy return to club action after the World Cup final.

The Lionesses, who beat Scotland 2-1 at the Stadium of Light on Friday, are taking on a Dutch side that surprisingly lost 2-1 away in Belgium in their opener in this Group A1 of the Nations League, with only the eventual group winners progressing to February’s finals and maintaining hope of qualifying for the 2024 Olympics too.

The Netherlands, who were runners-up at the 2019 World Cup under Wiegman, reached the quarter-finals in Australia and New Zealand this summer before – like England – they were eventually beaten by Spain. But Wiegman says the English women’s game is further ahead at the moment.

“The big difference is that the women’s game has developed a lot. In England everything is three times as big. The media attention is bigger, the number of players we have available, the league is fully professional,” Wiegman said. “Also the FA is a much bigger association than the Dutch association is – so many people are involved in the women’s game. We are a few steps ahead.”

England were comfortable winners over the Dutch in their only previous meeting, in a friendly at Elland Road, in the run-up to Euro 2022, and this is their first meeting on Dutch soil since Wiegman switched the Oranje for the Lionesses.

That said, Wiegman knows that Tuesday’s meeting is, theoretically, the toughest in this campaign, and she added: “The group now, with the new set-up in the Nations League, is very hard, they’re different opponents with a different style of play, of course with different players.

“When you look in theory the Netherlands are of course the best opponent but we saw on Friday that Scotland did really well too. Nothing is easy in this group so we’re just preparing as well as possible for every opponent.”