World Cup crunch time for Wiegman and the Lionesses

In today’s quarter-final against Colombia, England will search for the ‘balance’ that will reveal how far they can go

- MIGUEL DELANEY

Sarina Wiegman is one of the best coaches in the world at figuring out a tactical problem, but even she has now wondered whether she got it right against Nigeria. After hours of analysis following the last-16 tie, the thinking has been that England should have gone to a back four.

It has influenced some of the approach ahead of today’s quarterfinal against Colombia. Wiegman and her staff are expecting a similar game, and another battle. The latter, like with Nigeria, is not to just reductively describe Colombia as a “physical” team – although that is precisely how England have been preparing. Wiegman has also been planning for the fine side the South Americans are, with special attention paid to star forward Linda Caicedo.

It is more how England are now into classic tournament football, even if it is far from the historic surge through Euro 2022. While that almost became free-wheeling at times, this has been a slog. Much of that has been down to injuries. Some of it has been down to the ultra-competitive nature of this World Cup, as best illustrated by Colombia’s group-stage defeat of Germany.

Wiegman has felt at times that every aspect of this tournament has been a fight, with a new problem seeming to follow every one that is solved. How else to describe Lauren James’s inexplicable decision that got her sent off against Nigeria, when it had seemed like she could seize the entire World Cup. She is considered fortunate to have got off with just a two-game ban, although the England squad obviously won’t consider that any kind of reprieve unless they actually make the final.