“This is not the Euros, this is not the World Cup” says Sarina Wiegman after England lose first game following triumphant summer | OneFootball

England manager Sarina Wiegman stressed the lack of need to panic after England fell to defeat against South American champions Brazil in their first game after winning the Euros in the summer.

The Lionesses were defeated 2-1 at the City of Manchester Stadium after two early Brazil goals, despite their opponents falling to 10 players early in the game.

Wiegman was quick to focus on the positives despite the defeat.

“This was a very good game to start with again after the Euros, a very good opponent, also of course a South American opponent – that’s what we really want because it’s different. I would say more emotional, more extroverted,” she said.

“It’s good for us to have them in front of us, they play very direct. Of course we want to get a better result, but I also think we got a lot of challenges in this game that we really need to experience so we know what we need to improve, and some things we did really well and some things we didn’t do well. That’s really good to see, because if you have an opponent that doesn’t give you those challenges then you’re not going to learn.”

Khiara Keating made her England debut at her childhood club, but when asked if Wiegman felt sorry for her conceding two unstoppable goals, she said she was eager to take attention away from her goalkeeper.

“I felt sorry for all of us [not just Khiara Keating]. We wanted to beat their first press. If they win it then they’re really good in the counter attack so that’s what we had twice. Khiara played out, we lost the ball and we didn’t win the duels and they went and scored that goal, and the second time we had a square pass which you know if you play a square pass against them, they are on it and they are gone, so that’s a team thing, that was not part of our game plan,” Wiegman said.

“Before even that, we had some moments where we did skip, we did go into Alessia [Russo] and then we became very dangerous, and that’s what we saw – even before the red card – we had a couple of times and that’s what we wanted. You have to get behind them because they are so powerful.”

England kept 70% of the ball against their depleted opponents, but could only find the back of the net through a second-half penalty courtesy of Georgia Stanway. Wiegman saw both positives and room for improvement in this aspect: “We kept playing football and we took out these square passes, and then of course when they got the red card, we dominated the game. We had many opportunities but the decision making and the execution we had to do better.”

On playing Maya Le Tissier as both a right back and centre back on the day after much speculation, Wiegman reflected: “With Maya what we want to do is – she really wants to go forward and that’s what we tried to do in the first half, but we had a bit too many turnovers I think, second half that went a bit better but the spaces were a little less because they changed their shape.

“The team needed to move a little quicker and give more options, in the second half we did that a bit better.

“With Maya going forward, that’s really what we wanted. Moments to read, ok when do I press, when do I support the center-backs and then that’s really good and in the second half we wanted her to go higher but the space was on the left side where Esme could step in and cross the pitch. We tried but I think we could have done a bit better in those moments.”

On England’s slow start, and the mistakes they made in the beginning of the game, she responded: “If I knew why [we make these mistakes], I would have solved it straight away. Nobody wants to go behind, I just can say what I see, and I think our decision-making in these moments, we help them to get the counter attack and score the goals. That’s what I am talking about all the time. I will review the game and see it again and if I can I will solve it straight away.

“We created opportunities, it’s just the execution, the final pass. It’s about decision making in the final third. We did create some opportunities, hit the crossbar, you know you don’t get that many chances, even against 10 [players] because they dropped a lot deeper, and you’ve seen they have very tall and very physical players so that’s why we tried many times to keep playing football – don’t cross too early.

“[When they scored] their first goal we didn’t deal well enough with their physicality, I think later on we did. That’s hard to say now, but the moments we did play duels, we did win duels, but in the beginning we struggled a bit. But of course in the second half we had an extra player so winning second balls was easier.”

Similar to earlier press conferences this week, Wiegman was asked about playing Le Tissier at right back, and she explained the reasoning behind this: “Yes, [the right-back position’s] lack of depth is one reason. We have players who can play there but Lucy [Bronze] is still building, Niamh [Charles] is still building, Esme [Morgan] can play there, but we think what do we need in the game? And I definitely was thinking I know she can play at right-back, and I know she play centre-back. So it’s a bit of managing minutes – what I wanted from her on the right-back side and the centre-back side – we keep experimenting in that.

“That’s one option of course, and at the same time there are two years to go. I hope that we will have more players to challenge that position, at the moment we have a couple but we want to have more players to challenge that position. Of course that’s one of the reasons I think about it also.”

Ultimately, it was a defeat with positives and room for learning. Wiegman was well aware of this.

“When you go out on the pitch, you go out there to win. And yes it hurts because that’s the environment we are in, but this is not the Euros, this is not the World Cup, there are no consequences. You can take some opportunities to try out things. When you are in the tournament you always sub to win. Now you also want to try out things and see where we are at, at this moment and moving forwards. But it feels a lot better to win,” she said.