Sarina Wiegman insisted that \u00ad\u00adentering the final 17 months of her contract as England\u2019s head coach was not a distraction, as she named her first squad of 2026 and recalled the fit-again captain, Leah \u00adWilliamson, for the side\u2019s meetings with Ukraine and Iceland next month.<\/p>\n
Williamson\u2019s fellow Euro\u00a02025 winners Hannah Hampton, Alex Greenwood and Lauren James have also been recalled after injuries, along with Jess Carter, who missed England\u2019s final matches of 2025 to recover from the NWSL playoffs. However, the Lionesses are without Ella Toone, Beth Mead, Niamh Charles and Missy Bo Kearns because of injury as the team get their 2027\u00a0World\u00a0Cup qualifying campaign under way.<\/p>\n
The conclusion of that tournament in Brazil marks the end of Wiegman\u2019s contract. She has led England to historic success since taking charge in 2021 and said of her future: \u201cNo update. It\u2019s pretty far away. We are in conversations all the time and we\u2019re still very happy from both sides. We\u2019re now really focusing on this qualification. We want to qualify and the best possible way is to do that in June [automatically, avoiding playoffs]. We\u2019re going for that and let\u2019s firstly do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked how she would ensure questions about her contract do not distract the team, she said: \u201cThere is no distraction whatsoever. We want to really focus on this qualification. We\u2019re really excited to get started. I haven\u2019t heard anyone in my team or staff that has been occupied with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
England, seeking to add a first world title to back-to-back \u00adEuropean championships, begin on neutral \u00adterritory in Turkey against Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very sad and heartbreaking what Ukraine have experienced, and that we can\u2019t play in Ukraine,\u201d \u00adWiegman said. \u201cBut the alternative is to go to \u00adTurkey, which is far away, but I think the accommodation we have, the training ground we have, is a good solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quick GuideEngland Women squad to face Ukraine and IcelandShow<\/p>\n
Squad to face Ukraine in Mardan, 5pm GMT Tuesday 3 March, and Iceland at the City Ground, 12.30pm Saturday 7 March<\/p>\n
Goalkeepers\u00a0Hannah Hampton (Chelsea), Anna Moorhouse (Orlando Pride), Ellie Roebuck (Aston Villa)<\/p>\n
Defenders Lucy Bronze (Chelsea), Jess Carter (Gotham), Grace Fisk (Liverpool), Alex Greenwood (Manchester City), Taylor Hinds (Arsenal), Maya Le Tissier (Manchester United), Esme Morgan (Washington Spirit), Poppy Pattinson (London City Lionesses), Leah Williamson (Arsenal), Lotte Wubben-Moy (Arsenal)<\/p>\n
Midfielders\u00a0Laura Blindkilde Brown (Manchester City), Grace Clinton (Manchester City), Lucia Kendall (Aston Villa), Georgia Stanway (Bayern Munich), Keira Walsh (Chelsea)<\/p>\n
Forwards Aggie Beever-Jones (Chelsea), Freya Godfrey (London City Lionesses), Lauren Hemp (Manchester City), Lauren James (Chelsea), Chloe Kelly (Arsenal), Jess Park (Manchester United), Alessia Russo (Arsenal)<\/p>\n
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England face Ukraine in Antalya on 3 March before hosting Iceland at Nottingham Forest\u2019s City Ground on 7\u00a0March, in a challenging group that also includes the world champions, Spain, whom England have faced in the past two major finals.<\/p>\n
The international window is longer than usual, with Fifa \u00adpermitting teams to play three games rather than the standard two, but \u00adWiegman said England opted against a friendly on top of their qualifiers. \u201cMy \u00adopinion, the FA opinion, is that, at this moment, we think it\u2019s best to play two [matches], because with the congested agenda and the amount of games, the players play so much, so we didn\u2019t want to use the third one,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn an ideal world we would have wanted to play the first game a little bit earlier. It would have been best to play [the first qualifier] at the \u00adweekend, to have a little bit more time in between [the qualifiers], but we couldn\u2019t control that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wiegman has given a first call\u2011up to the London City Lionesses defender Poppy Pattinson and \u00adchosen Ellie Roebuck among the goal\u00adkeepers instead of Manchester City\u2019s \u00adKhiara Keating. \u201cThe message [to the \u00adplayers] is that we want to qualify as soon as possible,\u201d the head coach said. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge challenge with the group we have but I\u2019m excited to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sarina Wiegman insisted that \u00ad\u00adentering the final 17 months of her contract as England\u2019s head coach was not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-481853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}