Sarina Wiegman: England need setbacks to improve, says Lionesses manager

Sarina Wiegman says her “hurt” England side need setbacks like their humbling defeat by Spain in order to improve.

The Lionesses missed a chance to automatically qualify for the 2027 Women’s World Cup with a poor 4-0 defeat in Majorca on Friday.

They must hope world champions Spain drop points against Iceland on Tuesday to avoid going into the play-offs, which will be played this autumn.

England, who take on Ukraine at the same time (20:00 BST) at Hill Dickinson Stadium, will need to better Spain’s result to finish top of their group.

“You don’t want these moments, but at some point you need some setbacks to get even more urgency to improve and to do better now, when you have the time to do that,” Wiegman told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“We had these moments before Euro 2025 too, when we had friendlies and we tried out things. It gave us a big setback, and we thought ‘OK, what can we do better?’

“We have a year to work on that. But the first thing is now we have to play Ukraine. We want to win that game.

“We want to give a great performance and show as individuals, and as a team, how good we are. After that, we’ll see what our next challenge is in October.”