‘It has been an incredible year’ – Wiegman reflects ahead of England’s fixture against Ghana

England head coach Sarina Wiegman says that she has thoroughly enjoyed another incredible year with the Lionesses.

The nation complete their 2025 schedule with an international friendly against Ghana in Southampton on Tuesday evening.

This year has seen England successfully defend their UEFA Women’s EURO title while they have generally impressed in games either side of the tournament. Reflecting on the nation’s achievements in an England press conference, head coach Wiegman admitted that it has been another incredible year.

“It has been an incredible year again,” Wiegman said. “The team prepared for the EUROs and the camps that we had from February towards the EUROs were great. The tournament itself was incredible. On the pitch, it was insane how the games developed but off the pitch, we were really calm. I think I enjoyed it more than all of the other tournaments. It wasn’t just the experience, the team were so calm, composed and I really enjoyed that.

“The homecoming has been a real highlight too. Having these four friendlies and being able to connect with the fans [has been great]. We were backed by 85,000 last Saturday and I think there’s 24,000 tickets sold [for Ghana] and that’s really incredible, I don’t take that for granted. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.”

England demolished China PR 8-0 in their latest fixture at Wembley on Saturday. The fans will expect more goals against Ghana but Wiegman says that it’s not necessarily an easy task.

She said “Tomorrow is going to be a totally different game with different styles of play. Of course, we have analysed Ghana and they have a clear structure of how they want to play. They can play direct and have a lot of pace on the ball. They have some rotations and we have to be aware of that.

“I don’t think it’ll be easy but I hope we make it easy ourselves and we play really well. We will see what happens.”

Following the current international window, there are a number of high profile club games and Wiegman has indicated that player load will be considered against Ghana.

She said “Of course, I’m very aware of the schedule, so you’ll see some changes tomorrow. We will try to manage minutes but also, we don’t have that many opportunities to play friendlies. After this camp, we only have eight more camps to go until the World Cup, of course, we have to qualify first. We want to use the time together and minutes on the pitch as much as possible.”

England’s international friendly against Ghana kicks-off at 7pm tomorrow night. Tickets remain on-sale and can be purchased by clicking here.