Triumph was a Dutch victory too

IT WOULD be boorish in the extreme to crow about football coming home and not acknowledge the route it took to get here — via the Netherlands.

Not just Sarina Wiegman, late of Ter Leede, Den Haag, Sparta Rotterdam and the Dutch national team, but her assistant Arjan Veurink, formerly with FC Twente and ATC ’65 and Anja van Ginhoven, team general manager after two stints with the Dutch FA. As England showed no sign of reaching this technical, tactical or organisational level until Wiegman arrived, her input and that of her staff cannot be underestimated. So this is an Anglo-Dutch victory and, as such, we should be grateful. And also a little red-faced. The investment in England’s women is huge, in all likelihood outstripped only by the United States. As such, it is a very poor show that this country is unable to produce a homegrown, female, coach. Hope Powell was the last and she departed in 2013. Since then, two men and a Dutch woman. This is a failing on the part of the English system.

We are very glad of Wiegman but should not need her to succeed. The international game is supposed to be the best of ours versus the best of theirs. If we need one of theirs, it is not wholly our win.