The first time Sarina Wiegman was offered the chance to become the head coach of a women’s team, she said no. Her two daughters were still young and she wanted to focus on them.
Deep down, however, she knew that it was a big opportunity and it wasn’t just any club: it was Ter Leede, where she enjoyed the most success as a player. She changed her mind and a few days later in a pancake restaurant down the road from her home town, The Hague, she signed a contract that kickstarted her coaching career.
In her first season, she won the Dutch league and has not looked back since. On Friday, she was appointed England’s head coach and will start her role in September 2021 after leading the Netherlands at the Olympics.
With 104 caps as a player at a time when women’s football was far from the professional sport it is today, the former captain, who turns 51 this year, is a true pioneer. As a child she was determined to play football but because it was unusual for girls to do so, she cut her hair short to make it look like she was one of the boys.
The short girl with the bright blue eyes developed into a feisty midfielder, tirelessly running around, while all the time telling her teammates what to do. She played most of her career for Ter Leede, winning two league titles, and had one season abroad, representing the University of North Carolina.
In 2007, after one year with Ter Leede, she took over at ADO Den Haag as the women’s top-flight in the Netherlands turned professional. The players, many of them still students, were surprised by her approach to the game as she introduced twice-weekly video analysis sessions, among other things. “If a player wants to perform at the highest level, they should know it requires the maximum effort to get there,” Wiegman told them.
Wiegman graduated as a PE teacher, putting maximum effort into climbing the coaching ladder. Calm, patient and at her own pace. In 2014, she became assistant coach of the Dutch women’s national team. A year later, after the World Cup, she was asked to become head coach. She said no. As her husband, Marten Glotzbach, said: “Sarina only begins a new adventure when she’s ready for it.”
In January 2017, she was. From the moment the Oranje gathered in La Manga for their first training camp she took control, determined to win the hearts of the Dutch football fans at the home Euros that summer.
During one of the first team meetings Wiegman gave the players a copy of an article with the headline: “Thirteen things you should give up if you want to be successful”. Give up your excuses and give up your need to be liked, were two of the examples. Players were also asked to express in a creative way what success meant to them. Some edited a short video, others performed a little play or a sketch.
By the time Euro 2017 came round, Wiegman and her staff had created a team that felt they were unbeatable. “She had put the right people in the right positions and had created a safe environment, in which we didn’t feel pressured and felt we shouldn’t be afraid by anyone,” says the Arsenal midfielder Daniëlle van de Donk. She describes Wiegman as a person who creates a good structure in a team and is not afraid to make tough decisions.
One of them came during the Euros when she dropped the captain, Mandy van den Berg, whom she knew from ADO Den Haag and had built a strong relationship with, after the second game. “It was one of the toughest decisions I ever had to make as a coach,” she said. “I didn’t feel guilty about it, but I did feel bad.”
She makes her staff members feel important and Foppe de Haan, who was her assistant at Euro 2017, has described her as a control freak, adding: “She prepares everything in the smallest detail. The number of sprints, the number of exercises, the timing of them, everything was always according to a tight schedule.”
Before and after training, players would see her other side: friendly with a sense of humour. “Before practice starts she will play around with us,” the former Arsenal player Dominique Janssen said. “But when she blows the whistle, it’s serious business.”
Even during the Euros, when Wiegman was spending a day with her family, she was unable to relax. “In my mind I was at the tournament the whole time,” she said. “Luckily, my family understood. So I had a quick cup of coffee, gave them a hug and spent the rest of the day on a chair in the woods, all by myself.”
She can relax, though, by doing yoga in her hotel room and recharges with a 15-minute power nap in the afternoon.
The Netherlands won Euro 2017 and after attendance records had been broken Wiegman and her team could celebrate in front of a huge crowd in Utrecht. She usually does not drink – and hates beer – but treated herself to a rare baco (Bacardi and coke).
It has not always been plain sailing. On their way to the World Cup semi-finals, they lost to Norway in the qualifying group and had to face the Euro 2017 finalists Denmark in a play-off. To make sure everyone was on the same page, Wiegman decided to visit some players in their home towns to talk about what had happened against Norway.
She booked a flight to London, where she talked to the Arsenal players. “I thought: what is she doing here,” said Janssen. “But once we were talking it felt good.” From London, Wiegman went to Barcelona to meet Lieke Martens.
She finished her trip by driving in a rental car from Barcelona to Montpellier in the south of France, where Anouk Dekker showed her around and took her to a nice restaurant.
“It felt a bit weird, eating together with my coach,” said Dekker. “When she ordered the steak, I felt I had to get the steak as well. When it arrived, I thought: that thing is huge. But Wiegman, tiny as she is, surprised me by eating the whole thing.”
The players agree it was a crucial part of helping the team qualify for the World Cup, where Wiegman led them to another first – a World Cup final and qualification for the Olympics.
Now, it is the turn of the England players to benefit from Wiegman’s approach. “I am honoured,” she said when the appointment was announced on Friday. She will be ready too, come September 2021, to take England to the next level because, as her husband says, she only takes something on when she is ready.
from Football | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PTYWyf
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