England added another impressive notch to their unbeaten run under Sarina Wiegman with Friday night’s win over the United States.
Lauren Hemp’s opener and Georgia Stanway’s penalty saw off the reigning world champions to make it 23 games without defeat for Wiegman, along the way winning the Lionesses’ first major trophy at Euro 2022.
Here, the PA news agency looks back at the impressive run.
World Cup qualifying
It took just 12 minutes for Ella Toone to score the first goal of Wiegman’s reign, and seven more followed before the opening World Cup qualifier against North Macedonia was out.
There were 10 in the return fixture in Skopje as well as home and away to Luxembourg and in Latvia, with an astonishing 20 in the home game against the latter in Doncaster – including Lauren Hemp’s first four international goals and hat-tricks also for Beth Mead, Ellen White and super-sub Alessio Russo.
Qualification was secured after a perfect 10 wins and 80 goals without reply, Mead leading the way with 13 while White and Toone scored 10 each – despite White retiring before the final two games against Austria and Luxembourg.
Arnold Clark Cup
A high-level preparation event for the Euros saw England held to their first draws of the Wiegman era, 1-1 against Canada and 0-0 as Spain became the first team to stop them scoring.
They still won the trophy after beating Germany 3-1 in their final game, with late goals from Millie Bright and Fran Kirby after Lina Magull cancelled out White’s opener.
Friendlies
Wiegman’s warm-up schedule for the home Euros saw her side take on fellow qualifiers Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland, going through the gears perfectly to win all three games.
The highlight came against the manager’s home country as they recovered from falling behind for the first time under Wiegman to win 5-1. Lucy Bronze took just 10 minutes to cancel out Lieke Martens’ goal before Mead struck twice to sandwich two in two minutes from Toone and Hemp.
Friday’s success against the world’s number one team was another feather in Wiegman’s cap.
Euro 2022
A tense opening win over Austria was forgotten by half-time in the next game, with England already six goals to the good en route to a staggering, swaggering 8-0 rout of well-fancied Norway. Victory over Northern Ireland, with Wiegman absent with Covid-19 and assistant Arjan Veurink directing from the dugout, completed the group stage.
Spain gave them a quarter-final scare with Esther Gonzalez’s opener before Toone equalised late on and Stanway scored a stunning extra-time winner.
Sweden were comprehensively dispatched 4-0 in the semi-final and though Toone’s wonderful Wembley opener was cancelled out by another Magull equaliser, Chloe Kelly had the decisive, trophy-winning say.
Overall record and scorers
Wiegman has won 21 of her 23 games in charge, with the only exceptions being the two draws in the Arnold Clark Cup.
Her side have scored 120 goals while Sophia Smith’s goal for the States was only the sixth they have conceded.
Mead is the top scorer with 21 goals in that period with White and Toone contributing 13 each, Stanway 12 and Russo and Hemp 10 apiece. Eighteen different England players have scored altogether for Wiegman, in addition to five opposition own goals.
