Randy Waldrum praises last woman standing Wiegman ahead of Round of 16 clash

Nigeria’s head coach, Randy Waldrum has heaped praises on his opponent colleague, Sarina Wiegman following her successes with the Lionesses as European champions.

Wiegman is the last female manager left in the competition, among 12 women of the 32 head coaches, including Desiree Ellis, whose Banyana Banyana lost 2-0 to the Netherlands in the Round of 16.

The former Netherlands coach took over as Lionesses head coach in September 2021, guiding her team to a 30-game unbeaten streak including only five draws and will take on 40th ranked African side for a place in the quarterfinal.

Having escaped the tournament’s Group of Death, the American tactician who is a coach educator in the United States and also works with the University of Pittsburgh, said he is hoping to pull off more upsets.

“Great. Now, number one, she’s done a fantastic job with England, obviously, since she took over. You can see the progression of the team,” Waldrum told media.

“And you know, when I look at a coach and I try to analyse, you know, if I don’t know them personally, you can look at their team and you can tell if they have an idea, you know, based just in their organisation and they look like they have a plan, you know, a way they want to play offensively and they’re organised defensively and you clearly can see that with England.

“They’re so disciplined on both sides of the ball. Their movement offensively is very good, especially in the last match you saw the how fluid it was against China.

“So I think she’s done a great job. I mean I give a ton of credit too to her and what she’s done and, you know, taking them through to become European champions and so forth. So I think her pedigree speaks for itself.

 “It’s a problem at every level, we need more women coaching in the sport. Not that men shouldn’t be coaching, if they love the women’s game and they’ve invested in it then we should have the opportunity to do it but certainly we need a big investment in women and women coaching.”