Euro 2022: England boss Sarina Wiegman says ‘you talk pressure, we’ll talk football’ ahead of quarter-final v Spain
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Updated 19/07/2022 at 13:05 GMT
England won their opening Euro 2022 group game 1-0 against Austria before beating Norway 8-0. Sarina Wiegman was then absent from the dugout for the 5-0 win over Northern Ireland due to Covid, but she hopes to be back with the squad at Brighton’s stadium on Wednesday night for the quarter-final against Spain.
'Hopefully she can deliver' - Can Wiegman take England to glory at Euro 2022?
Sarina Wiegman says her England side are focused on football, not pressure, going into their Euro 2022 quarter-final against Spain on Wednesday.
The Lionesses were the top-scoring nation in the group stages, beating Austria, Norway and Northern Ireland by a 14-0 aggregate to comfortably top Group A.
Next up for England in their home Euros is a last-eight showdown with Group D runners-up Spain, who lost to Germany between wins over Finland and Denmark.
And Wiegman – who is “feeling well” but must wait to see if she records a negative Covid test to make the dugout at Brighton’s Falmer Stadium after missing the Northern Ireland match – is not looking to place too much expectation on her own side.
“You talk about pressure all the time and we talk about football,” Wiegman said during a virtual press conference on Tuesday.
“We are just trying to play football at our bests and use our strengths to exploit the weaknesses of the opponent. Yes, we know it’s the knockout stage but that’s the same for the opponent. It’s exciting. We want to work as hard as we can and hopefully we will become successful.
“No. It’s another game. We always talk about expectations but we have done that early on in the preparations. It is the same structure for every game.”
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England are among the favourites to win the Euros, although in Spain they face the pre-tournament favourites who were dealt a blow by Alexia Putellas and Jenni Hermoso’s injury withdrawals.
Wiegman added: “There are a couple of teams who are the favourites and I don’t think that has changed a lot over the group stages. We have seen the games are a high level and there are more teams who can win the Euros. Spain are missing two key players but of course they are still a very good team.
“We know our plan, we know our strengths and we also know there are more favourites to win. We have a game against Spain so we don’t have anything yet. They are a very good team, we are a very good team too so we want to play the best game we can and hopefully that will give us the win.
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“I do expect the game that they have played all the time. They will probably have the ball a lot too but I hope we do. That’s okay in certain moments but we are pretty comfortable on the ball so I’m excited to see how it will go tomorrow evening.
“It’s all about trying to use our strengths and trying to exploit their weaknesses. We know there are spaces, they have such an attacking style of play so we are absolutely aware of that."
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