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Sarina Wiegman says that she is hoping to see her England side perform to their best levels when they take on Portugal in the UEFA Women’s Nations League on Friday night.
The Lionesses have travelled to Portimão ahead of their first fixture in this season’s competition.
England have back-to-back games against Portugal and Spain in the current international window. When speaking to the media ahead of the Portugal fixture, England boss Wiegman said that she wants to see her side connected and playing to their best levels.
“First of all, we are going to approach these games to win because it’s Nations League,” Wiegman said. “It’s important to get ourselves into the best position for the draw for the World Cup. That’s a little further away but that’s why these games are important.
“I want everyone to play at their best regardless of if they are young or experienced. If we are connected, we are going to play the best game and that’s what we are preparing for tomorrow. After that, we will look at the next game. We approach it game-by-game and we want to get good results.
“Playing these games will give us more learnings too. Every game is a learning game and we want to win. Last autumn, we had the opportunity to try out things, try connections, play many players and manage load but that’s different to where we are going now.”
England have won just two of their last five matches but Wiegman explained that this is a sign of the increased competition in the women’s international game.
She said “The level is improving all of the time, so we can’t just take it for granted that we are going to win games all of time time.
“Before the Nations League came in, we would play different countries at different levels; we are never going to win 20-0 again and I don’t think that’s competitive anyway. It changed and when we played in the Nations League [last year], we also had Sweden and France in the group and that’s not easy and then we had the friendlies after that.
“I think we are going in the right direction and we have many talented players. We are really excited for the start of the new Nations League, it’s a good group and I’m excited to see what the players do on the pitch tomorrow.”
Wiegman is without the services of midfielder Georgia Stanway through long-term injury and the England boss is giving no clues away when it comes to which players will be selected in midfield for the nation’s first game of 2025.
She said “We think about many scenarios, what the options are and at the end, we will pick one. This shows that it’s important to have friendly games too, so that we can try out things. Players play at really high levels at their clubs too.
“We have a lot of things under consideration and you will see what we opt for tomorrow.”
England’s UEFA Women’s Nations League fixture against Portugal kicks-off at 7.45pm on Friday night.
