England head coach Sarina Wiegman said that she was disappointed to see her side held by Portugal in Milton Keynes this afternoon.
The Lionesses drew o-o with a well-drilled Portuguese side at Stadium MK. England dominated the game but were unable to convert any of the good chances which came their way.
When speaking in the post-match press conference, Wiegman said that there were positives to take from the game for England but she was disappointed that her side didn’t win the contest.
“Myself and the players are very disappointed that we didn’t win this game,” Wiegman said. “However, we also take a lot of learnings from it and I think at moments, we saw the things we are really working on and wanted to show as a way of creating chances to score goals.
“In the first half, we were a little bit too slow and we had too many players behind the ball or very close to the ball, so when we broke lines, we didn’t have enough numbers higher up the pitch. We did that a lot better in the second half; we had players higher and created more chances, though we created a couple of chances in the first half but we just didn’t score.
“I think we had moments that were really good and moments where we could have done better, especially with the final pass.
“Despite all of those things, I still think we created so many chances we could have scored. We also changed, had lots of substitutes and kept the game going, we kept keeping the ball trying score.”
Whereas many people saw England as favourites for the UEFA Women’s EURO last summer, the Lionesses are a little less fancied going into the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023. Wiegman doesn’t compare the two scenarios and she sees the qualities that her side will offer in their latest major tournament appearance.
She said “I don’t compare them to each other. The team has changed, so there is another dynamic now because we have some different players in the team with different qualities.
“It is a new situation. With this new situation, we continue to develop our style of play with the individuals that we have and that’s how we approach it.
“I think we are in a very good place, we have had two very good weeks on and off the pitch. This game was very helpful. Although we didn’t score the goal, I think you could see from the way the game went that we know what we want to do and that’s what we are working on.”
England will fly out to Australia to complete their final preparations ahead of the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 on Wednesday.