Former Lioness Siobhan Chamberlain says Sarina Wiegman could be a leading figure for women in men’s football and shares World Cup predictions
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Siobhan Chamberlain discusses England’s World Cup chances
Former England goalkeeper Siobhan Chamberlain spoke exclusively to Ladbrokes on the eve of the Women’s World Cup about head coach Sarinia Wiegman, the six countries in with a chance of lifting the trophy and her prediction for Saturday’s group opener against Haiti.
Sarina Wiegman summed up in three words
I don’t think you need three words to sum up Sarina [Wiegman]. It’s just winner, winner, winner. Other than that, I guess I’d go with ‘the difference maker’.
She’s made the final of the last three major tournaments she’s been to. She’s just got that mentality; she is the difference between a team being good and a team being brilliant. She’s unflappable on the sidelines and I think, for me, her biggest attribute – aside from the way she is with her players – is that on the pitch, the way she can change things when she knows they’re not working.
So many times you see managers leaving it until the 75th minute – or later – to change things. It’s too late then. But Sarina will make changes when she feels she needs to. She knows her group of players and who she needs and how she needs to make those changes to get the results that she’s been getting. The way she understands the game, and manages that, and manages her squad of players, I think, is really brilliant.
Obviously, the pressure of taking a host nation in the Netherlands and getting them to the final of – and winning – a Euros, then to take them to the World Cup final, then to come to England and win another Euros… it’s absolutely incredible.
Maybe she’ll go one better on the world stage this time out and take us all the way.
Wiegman is capable of a top job in the men’s game
I don’t see why Sarina couldn’t be a leading figure in female managers working in the men’s game. I think that if you’ve got the knowledge, that’s the most important bit.
Then it’s about having the respect of your players and I think that by achieving what she’s achieved in the game, there’s just no way you could argue that she doesn’t have the respect of her players.
From then you can go in to a place and tell them what you want to achieve, how you want to do it, and they will listen and – hopefully – implement what you’re asking them to do.
Without the respect, it makes things difficult, for sure. But I don’t see why females can’t step into that space, if they’ve got the ability, if they’ve got the knowledge, and if they can gain the respect – which they should do, because of what they’ve previously achieved.
In all areas, everything I’ve heard about Sarina [Wiegman] has been positive. She’s honest, she respects her players and has open conversations with them so everyone knows where they’re at. That goes a long way towards a united dressing room.
Six teams will fancy their chances of winning the World Cup
It’s a bit of a boring answer but I think we’re going to see and England v USA final.
On paper it looks like it’ll be a USA v Spain semi, which is a really tough one to call. Spain are brilliant, they’ve still got a few players missing because of previous controversies… I just wonder whether they’ve got that ruthlessness.
They’re a great side and you can look back at the game against England in the Euros, they were so much better than us – they just didn’t have that ruthlessness.
So, when you put them up against the USA, a team just full of arrogance, with that winning mentality, it’s hard to see them progressing past that point. I feel the same about France. Again, they’re a really good side, and if you were to look at a couple of outside bets, France and Australia are the two I’d go with.
If you look at Australia in recent times, they tend to get to the quarter-final stages of major tournaments. They didn’t in the last one, but generally, they make the latter stages. They’ve got the best striker in the world in Sam Kerr and they’ll have the home support. You absolutely can’t underestimate the significance of that home advantage; look at how it helped the Netherlands in 2017, and England last year. It’s a huge advantage.
Australia have recently beaten England, they’ve just beaten France, they’ve got Sam Kerr, as well as so much more talent in that side and the backing of the home support. The whole tournament is set up for them to win it. So if you wanted an outside bet, I’d probably go with them. I honestly think there’ll be at least six teams who genuinely think they have a chance of winning the World Cup.
There are so many countries heading out there with injury problems – not just England – which makes it more of a level playing field. USA, England, and Spain are always going to be in the conversation but then you’ve got France, Germany, Australia, even Brazil… all of these – on their day – can beat anyone.
It’s about who can build that momentum at the right moment – it’ll be a really tight tournament though, I’m sure of that.
Golden Boot race could be ‘skewed’ by USA’s group games
As for the Golden Boot, there’s always a skewed nature attached because of the wide variance of ability in the group stages.
You look at the last World Cup, when USA beat Thailand 13-0 and Alex Morgan scored five… she only scored one more all tournament and ended up as joint-top scorer.
USA play Vietnam this year, who just lost 9-0 to Spain in a friendly last week. So things could be quite concerning for them!
Sam Kerr is obviously the great choice for Golden Boot because she’s by far the best striker in the world, in my opinion. We’re lucky that we get to watch her play in this country every week in the WSL. I think it’ll either be her, or Sophia Smith.
England may be 1/66 to beat Haiti but I only see them winning 1-0
England take on Haiti in their World Cup opener on Saturday morning. Obviously, we’re massive favourites to go and win that game and the odds suggest it should be fairly comfortable.
Prior to the last three games we’ve played, I’d have probably said this one will be around the 4-0 mark. But we’re really struggling in front of goal right now, we’ve just lost 2-0 to Australia and drew 0-0 with Portugal. So with that in mind, I’m going to go with a 1-0 win.
We’ve absolutely got enough to get over the line but we’re just not firing on all cylinders yet. It doesn’t matter so much in your first game of the tournament, the most important thing is getting those three points.
It’s not necessarily going to be an easy watch for fans but a win is a win and I’m confident we’ve got more than enough to take all three points and build on that throughout the rest of the competition.
All odds and markets correct as of date of publication
