A common theme across Sarina Wiegman’s successful tenure has been a notion that she would only pick players who were performing for their clubs. Friday’s team selection at Wembley was truly at odds with that principle, and in a chastening half an hour’s chaos against European women’s football’s most decorated nation, the England head coach’s decisions backfired in spectacular fashion.
In naming an unchanged starting side from that which played the previous fixture in July, it was almost as if Wiegman did not feel any of the club fixtures so far this season held sufficient significance to trump any of the performances in that goalless draw away to Sweden three months ago. Yet for the match-going fans at Women’s Champions League and domestic games this term, that notion will have been truly baffling, as some of England’s most in-form players were harshly overlooked.
