Sarina Wiegman sits comfortably in the stands of the Marbella Football Centre, wearing her baseball cap, feet propped on the back of the plastic chair in front of her, examining the team sheet. The England manager is surrounded by his 23-man squad full of Euro and Champions League winners, including numerous domestic cups. After morning training ahead of their game against Austria on Friday night, they lie in the sun, watching instead of playing for the first time.
They examine England’s Under-23 team, which could have started well against Spain and lost 3-1. Several of the starting 11 have experience in the senior team. Katie Robinson was in the World Cup squad last year and Ebony Salmon made her debut in 2021. Here a day ago, Bristol City centre-back Naomi Layzell got her first taste of playing with players sitting in the stands in 2021. senior side. For now, he and his teammates are playing without names on their jerseys to attract the attention of Wiegman and the coaching staff.
Relating to: Alessia Russo and Mead scored a double in the match where the Lionesses defeated Austria 7-2.
Manchester City goalkeeper Khiara Keating and midfielder Grace Clinton are the two names promoted to the senior class this time. Those opportunities exist, but they were a little more there this week; The first team and under-23 players were playing two matches each at a joint training camp in Marbella. This is a chance for Wiegman to get to know the players as people off the field as well as their performance on the field. “Happy people make better elite athletes,” says Under-23 head coach Emma Coates. “It’s about knowing the person, knowing what makes them tick, and creating an environment and culture around that. It helps relieve some of the performance pressures, and that’s just helpful.”
The introduction of the Under-23 team in 2021 has filled a huge gap in the pipeline between the Under-19s (and the Under-20s, who play every two years during Under-20 World Cup years) and the senior team. By keeping players in their early 20s, it ensures that they remain in touch with the philosophies, conditions and demands of the England coaching staff and international football. This means that even though being called to a higher level means moving up one step, they are prepared for that environment as much as they can.
“Ball speed,” Layzell says when asked about the difference after his first session with the senior team. “The quality of the players is really high and you can see the difference. Sometimes you might think: ‘Oh, I’m out of my depth.’ But then you say: ‘I’m here for a reason and I’m going to do my best.’”
Layzell left the session “thinking I had made a good statement about myself”, saying: “Yes, I probably wasn’t the best player on the field, of course, but I guess I came in thinking they wouldn’t think that. I’m trash, so that was the point.”
Senior players are no strangers to the Under-23s, with many competing with or against them in the Women’s Super League, but this is a step up and the interest in improving consistency across England age groups is making the transition much smoother.
Layzell says: “Sarina and Emma have been working a lot together and talking about their styles of play and trying to get us to play in similar ways, using different combinations and shapes and everything… It’s just about making sure we can create consistency. “But the Under-23 players are very talented and we know many players can train and adapt to this top-level environment.”
Coates says he meets with Wiegman and his team every Tuesday. “It’s difficult” in Marbella, he says, “because we both want to prepare for our matches, but I probably talked to her every day. We collaborated on Naomi, for example. The medical teams and the performance teams also connected. It’s not necessarily forced or taken into account, but it’s very good We have business relations.
Coates first worked with Layzell at under-18 level. “His development is very good,” he says. “Everyone has been impressed with his defensive performance this season. He is a complete defender and it is very rare to find young players who like to defend. He has improved significantly in some of the things he has.
“Having the opportunity to step up for the session will boost his confidence tremendously. He’s also competing against these players every week [in the WSL]. Sometimes they feel a little different when they’re wearing an England jersey. It’s probably gone now: ‘OK, I felt what it was like in the WSL, I felt it in training with the seniors and now I have real clarity about the things we’re doing and what’s going to take me to the next level.’”
They collectively celebrate the success of each player like Layzell. There is no formula to create the perfect Lioness. “The strength of the wolf is the strength of the pack,” Coates says. “It’s just being a super individual. How do we as a player turn their strengths into their superpowers, and we often do this under pressure? They have to be pretty fearless about it.
“I think it would be wrong for me to say ‘That’s exactly the player we want’ because then we have quite robotic football. If you want exciting football then it’s about making that person the best they can be, rather than turning that person into something specific.”