Faster, fitter and a sharper unit: England are becoming the real deal

It is almost five years since a bomb scare in the eastern Netherlands left England’s team bus completing seemingly endless circles of the dual carriageways surrounding Enschede.

By the time the local police confirmed it was a hoax, Mark Sampson’s Lionesses were behind schedule for their Euro 2017 semi-final against Sarina Wiegman’s Netherlands and arrived at FC Twente’s stadium much later than intended.

It rather set the tone on a night when everything went wrong for the-then tournament favourites and the Oranje ultimately cruised to a 3-0 victory en route to glory in the final against Denmark.

Fast forward to Friday night at Elland Road and Wiegman was patrolling the Lionesses’s technical area while Mark Parsons, an Englishman, led the Netherlands out.

Just to add to the confusion, England wore orange and their opponents a predominantly white kit with the role reversal theme even extending to the action. Following a stodgy start the home team eventually pummelled their guests into almost total submission.

By the end Wiegman had passed her toughest test in a Three Lions adorned tracksuit with aplomb, simultaneously reinforcing England’s credentials as Euro 2022 favourites while dampening her old team’s expectations. Hats off for her series of judicious substitutions as she cleverly juggled a squad very big on strength in depth.

As outstanding a coach as the 52-year-old clearly is, it is though tempting to wonder whether she would have been in West Yorkshire choreographing a stunning 5-1 win against her former players had that security incident never happened and Sampson’s class of 2017 played to their true potential in Enschede.

No one will ever know the answer but 13 games, 11 wins and 79 goals scored into Wiegman’s