“I actually can’t believe it myself” says Sarina Wiegman after England’s second consecutive Euros win | OneFootball

England boss Sarina Wiegman revealed that even she’s in disbelief at England’s second consecutive European Championship triumph.

The Lionesses defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the final. For Wiegman, the success marks a third successive victory at the Euros, having also won with the Netherlands in 2017.

“I am very happy. I actually can’t believe it myself. How can this happen? But it happened. I’m so incredibly proud of this team, and the staff. We are just going to party tonight,” she said.

On veteran Lioness Lucy Bronze, who had been playing with a fractured tibia throughout the entirety of the tournament, she said: “Her mentality, the whole team has an incredible mentality, but she has a crazy mentality, it’s unbelievable.”

Chloe Kelly scored the winning penalty in the final, but just seven months ago, she was ready to quit football after falling out of favour at Manchester City. Now, though, her international manager couldn’t be happier for her. “Every player has their own story and every story is incredible on their own. But for her of course, most of her story is out in the open,” Wiegman said. “I’m so happy for her too. She has been fighting to come back, and to be at her highest level. She loves these moments and she wanted to take the penalty of course. To be able to score that penalty under that pressure is impressive too.”

Hannah Hampton, England’s goalkeeper, was one of the most controversial call-ups, with a side effect being the international retirement of the iconic Mary Earps. But, having saved two penalties in the final shootout, it’s safe to say Wiegman’s choice paid off.

“Again, every player has their own story and journey and hers has been incredible. Starting the tournament and losing the first game, there was so much riding on every game, we had five finals. She had to step up and I think she has been amazing. It’s a little bit like a fairy-tale to stop those two penalties in the final,” Wiegman said.

“I must admit that this was the most chaotic and ridiculous tournament we have played. Every time we could come back: the quarter-final, semi-final, and now the final. We have players that have talent, and the togetherness of this team is really incredible, but also the belief that we can come back. The players say we can win by any means, and we just never, ever give up. Today of course, we had moments where we really had to fight, but I thought we also had some very good moments in the game. The belief, the comeback. Every player is also ready to come on the pitch and show up straight away. That is not easy. I’m just really grateful that I’m part of this team.”

Jess Carter had a difficult tournament after having faced online racial abuse, but put in an excellent performance at the heart of England’s back four in the final. It was another success which filled Wiegman with pride.

“Well, first of all, it says something about the team that we can make tactical decisions. I’ve said a couple of times now that I was really happy, before the tournament, with my squad, and that we had players in the same position that can bring different things, and that was, in this case, true with Esme [Morgan] and Jess [Carter]. Italy was a different game than Spain and we felt we needed Jess now in the starting line-up, the fight and the duels, she can play, and she showed of course that she is a great personality. She was ready to perform, also against Italy, but that was a tactical decision and now we’ve made a tactical decision. I had all the belief in her and she had the belief in herself, that’s the most important thing, that she could contribute to the team and you can tell that the team trusted her too.”

Before the game, Wiegman did have a message to her team. “Well I’ve said a couple of things, but right before we went on the pitch, I just said – I can’t use all the words I said, I think – but the main message was enjoy it. We’ve got so far now in this tournament. I think we all created something again together. So these are the moments where you dream of , well some couldn’t even dream of because it wasn’t possible when they were little kids. But go out there and enjoy it and play your very best game.”

Earlier this tournament, she described it as a movie. “Well I don’t watch movies back so often,” she said. “But I’ll probably look back over the coming days, and see some things back. One of the main things I looked back on was tactical footage of the game. So the rest of the movie? I’ll probably see some things back. The main things I looked back on was detectable footage of the games. So the rest of the movie – I’ll probably take some time to do that over the next couple of days.

And on the overall journey, she said: “Yeah, it has been incredible, around in the camp, the training sessions, everything around the team was very calm. You might not think that, but it was all very calm. Just the games were chaotic and very close and tight and we were behind in a lot of the games. Of course we lost the first game, so there was hard work for everyone. But afterwards, it was all very calm and the environment we were in-  the facilities were incredible. The support from the Swiss people was incredible here. So that was really enjoyable.”