Sarina Wiegman ‘grateful’ for Women’s World Cup growth 35 years after experiment

It was 1988, Wiegman was 18, and while men had been participating in World Cups for 58 years, a women’s equivalent existed only as an idea – one FIFA decided first needed to be tested in the form of a proof-of-concept, 12-team tournament at a time when even the now-dominant Americans had played just 22 matches.

Thirty-five years later, Wiegman’s Lionesses are one of the favourites to win the ninth edition of a global championship that has expanded to 32 teams, boasts a $110million (£84.7m) prize pot, has already sold out the 80,000-plus seat Stadium Australia and is expected to draw about two billion viewers from around the world.

Asked at England’s team hotel in Queensland if teenage Sarina could have ever envisioned what the World Cup has become, the now 53-year-old immediately replied: “No. No, no, absolutely not. Absolutely not. The whole, everything, it’s totally changed, and really quickly.

“And even when I was older and I think maybe 20 years ago, I would not have ever expected or not even dreamed to be in this situation, that in women’s football we would be now where we are, or even that I would be in a situation where I am now. That’s why I enjoy it so much, too.

“It’s because I am grateful that things have changed so quickly. There’s still a long way to go, but how it grew [and moved] so many steps forward, I’m just very grateful for that.”

Though women’s international competitions had taken place before, the 1988 Women’s Invitation Tournament was the first sanctioned by FIFA. Wiegman recalls that the White Swan felt “so luxurious”, but her memories of the playing conditions are foggier.

She explained: “I just wanted to play. I wasn’t bothered about pitches, [because] I wasn’t used to [them]. We didn’t have the facilities. So I found everything we had in the stadium, there were 20,000 people, and they were laughing when someone made a mistake or something, that was really strange because they had a totally different view of football than in Europe, but well, there wouldn’t be 20,000 people [in Europe] then.”

The Netherlands were ultimately beaten 2-1 by Brazil in the quarter-finals, but the competition solidified Wiegman’s desired destiny and convinced FIFA that an inaugural Women’s World Cup should be hosted by the same Chinese province in 1991.

Wiegman said: “I thought ‘this is what I want to do’, but there weren’t very many opportunities then. But I just really loved that tournament, I will never forget that tournament.”

The former midfielder remains adamant that “I’m just me and doing what I love the most” yet it is no exaggeration to say the self-described “serious” Hague native, whose CV is an astonishing chronicle of unprecedented accomplishments, has had a critical impact on the history of her beloved sport in more than one country.

Wiegman retired after earning 104 caps for the Netherlands – her career itself a feat for a girl who once chose to chop off her hair and disguise herself as a boy because she found herself barred from football because of her gender.

Since then Wiegman transitioned from PE teacher to the pioneering first head coach of Eredivisie Vrouwen side ADO Den Haag – but only after refusing an initial offer of a part-time role and insisting their ambitions were only viable with full investment.

Wiegman assisted then-Netherlands head coach Roger Reijners at the 2015 World Cup, shortly after which she became the first woman in her country to coach with a men’s professional club, Sparta Rotterdam.

She took permanent charge of the Netherlands in 2017, six months before they won the European Championship. Two years later, they were World Cup runners-up. With England’s Euro 2022 triumph, Wiegman became the first head coach to win that competition with two different countries.

Now the Lionesses boss could lead her side to the World Cup title that has so far evaded them both, decades after she boarded that life-altering plane to China and paved the way for the next wave of football-mad women just like her.

Of them, she added: “Oh yes, they’re very grateful. Absolutely, this generation – yes. I think the younger group will come, we really need to keep telling them what our identity is and where we came from, where we come from. So we know how it was, how it’s growing and where we are. I think that’s very important.”