'She really, really cares' How Wiegman helped England form a winning habit

Who has got the ability to take us right to the top of Everest? That's my job, to find that person for the players.

- Tom Garry

They deserve the best." Those were the words of the Football Association's then head of women's football, Sue Campbell, in the summer of 2020 as - alongside the chief executive, Mark Bullingham, and the then technical director, Kay Cossington - she sought to find a new England head coach to replace Phil Neville, who was to leave his role the following year.

The Lionesses had reached three consecutive major tournament semi-finals, but kept suffering heartbreak and missing out on an elusive final. The FA's mission was simple: find someone with the knowhow to take the team to the next level. A total of 142 applied for the role, Campbell said at the time, and it was Cossington who first suggested: "There's this brilliant woman called Sarina Wiegman.."

The less said about some of the decision-making from people in power in this country in that bleak summer of 2020, the better, but when it comes to this particular appointment, it is now abundantly clear that Campbell, Bullingham and Cossington made the correct choice.

Just three tournaments, three finals and two titles later, Wiegman has overseen the transformation of the women's national team's identity into winners, a team that oozes belief, a team with a never-say-die attitude and a unrelenting focus on success.

The first thing Wiegman commanded on day one in the job was respect. The England players knew that Wiegman had done something they had not yet done - she had won a major international trophy, with the Netherlands in 2017 - and that made them eager to listen to her every word.