Women’s Euro 2022 team guide No 9: Netherlands

This article is part of the Guardian’s Women’s Euro 2022 Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 16 countries who have qualified. theguardian.com is running previews from two countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 6 July.

What are the Orange Lionesses worth without Wiegman? That’s the big question. After four and a half glorious years, the successful coach crossed the Channel last summer of 2021 to take over at the helm of English women’s football. In the search for a successor, the Royal Dutch Football Association (the KNVB) expressed the ambition to find a “Sarina Plus”. That was easier said than done.

In the Netherlands, only a handful of women have the necessary diploma and well-known names from men’s football did not dare to make the switch. “That is out of fear, and fear is always a bad counselor. I honestly find it unbelievable,” said Wiegman on hearing the search to replace her was foundering. “This team … they are so ambitious, so driven.”

Fortunately for the KNVB, there was someone in America who thought the same: Mark Parsons. The then Portland Thorns coach was happy to accept when a call came. On one condition: that he could finish the season with his American club in the NWSL. The Dutch football association agreed and the deal was done.

The results were initially less than the Dutch public was used to – remember this is a team that won the last Euros on home soil and then reached the World Cup final in 2019, losing 2-0 to the US in Lyon three years ago. However it should be noted that Parsons is yet to have the full-strength side at his disposal due to injuries. The change at the top did indirectly lead to a broadening of the selection.