England’s back-to-back European Cup winning coach Sarina Wiegman had to pretend to be a boy to play football when she was a child growing up in the Dutch city of Hague in the 1980s. “When I started playing football as a six-year-old girl we weren’t allowed to play, so I played illegally,” she told The BBC.
A football powerhouse and the birthplace of the most radical concept in the game, Total Football, the Dutch association had banned women playing the game in 1938. It took another 33 years to lift the ban, and another decade for it to really pick up in the country. “It wasn’t normal then and now it’s just normal, whether you’re a boy or a girl, you can play football and that’s just great. It was actually crazy before, that you couldn’t, but that’s just the way it is in development I guess.”
She would cut her hair short and sneak to the club with her twin brother. “I had very short hair, looked a little bit maybe like a boy, my parents were really OK and I had a twin brother, so we just started to play and everyone said that’s OK. Soon her identity was revealed but the club GSC ESDO let her train with the boys. Later, she joined the women’s team of Ter Leede, where she played for nine years, helping them to win two league titles and the Dutch cup, while also earning 99 caps for her country. By then, she had swapped bowl-cut to a shock of wild blond hair.
Some of her teammates recall her as a tough captain but a loving person. Jeanet van der Laan once told Daily Mail: “She was pretty loud in the dressing room and very confident about her qualities. Sarina came to visit me because she wanted to see where I lived. I only had a washing machine and not a dryer. She asked me, ‘How are you going to do this? You have to train, practise almost every day. How are you going to dry your gear?’. “I said, ‘I don’t know, I don’t have any money’. So, she gave me her tumble dryer. And that’s something I will never forget.”
The women’s team had meagre wages. So he supplemented her income by working as a PE teacher at Segbroek College in The Hague, a job she kept throughout her playing career. When still working as a PE teacher, she returned to the club, Ter Leede as its coach, won a double in the first season and continued to champion for the rights of women players. When the women’s league was formed, winning the double in her first season — and continued to fight for the rights of women players. When the Dutch women’s league, Eredivisie, was launched in 2007, she was asked to coach a new team for Ado Den Haag on a part-time basis. She refused until they gave her a full-time job. Three years later, she joined Sparta Rotterdam, becoming the first female coach at a professional club in the country.
In 2021, after five fruitful years with the Netherlands, she assumed charges of England Lioness and have steered them to successive European titles. But more than the medals, she is prouder of the change she helped bring. “I really love the medals but what I’m proud of most is that now young girls have perspective, young girls can play football and young girls can wear shirts [with players’ names on]. When you go to the grocery store and people tell you, ‘My daughter was wearing that shirt but my son is wearing that shirt now too’, we’ve changed society”,” she once said.
Pragmatic coach, loving person
A pragmatic coach, she tweaks her systems according to her resources and the opposition. But the soul of her coaching is motivating her players. Just before the semifinal against Italy, she revealed a sweary toiletry bag to motivate the players during the team talk. “B****es get sh** done”. Forward Beth Mead revealed: “Sarina had a certain little way of motivating us, it was great, it was funny, it was everything. She did it again tonight. She had a little toiletry bag that said, ‘B****es get sh** done’, and b****es got sh** done today. That is it, drop the mic.” She also told her players to “enjoy the final” and make the most of an experience they “couldn’t even dream of” when they were kids.
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She also created a strong bond in the team and the support staff. Every single member of staff coming into this camp felt valued by her, knew exactly what their role was and how they could be part of an overall tea, Stressing that everyone is in it together is critical.” said FA CEO Mark Bullingham.
To some, she is like a mother. Michelle Agyemang, only 19, said during the Euros: “I think most people will say, when they work with Sarina, she’s like a mum to us, almost. She cares about our wellbeing [and] she’s ready to step in and tell us: ‘That’s not good enough, let’s be better.’ So I think she has that fine balance,” she said.
“She shows the same type of care to me, who’s the youngest, to the oldest, showing the same sort of care to each and every one of us, no matter what our role is, even if we don’t play, she’s still willing to go and shake your hand and say ‘well done’, even if we didn’t touch the pitch, and that shows we’re valued in the squad,” she added.
But even in the hour of glory, she did not forget to stress on investing more in women’s football. “We need some more investment. We’re not there yet. In England we’re up there but England needs to stay the trailblazer, it needs to be the big example. The players first but also the FA, the clubs, the Government, the country, the fans – let’s keep being the trailblazers.” Motherly and caring, but a firebrand too.
