Sarina Wiegman admits disbelief at England's stunning first half performance vs Norway
By Ali Rampling
Sarina Wiegman admitted she was left in disbelief at half time during England's thumping victory over Norway on Monday evening after watching her side net six goals in the opening 45 minutes.
England blew Norway away at the Amex in their second Euro 2022 group fixture, recording an 8-0 victory over a side dubbed dark horses by many ahead of the tournament.
A Georgia Stanway penalty, braces from Beth Mead and Ellen White and a Lauren Hemp goal had seen England into a 6-0 lead after just 41 minutes in an extraordinary half of football, before substitute Alessia Russo got on the scoresheet and Mead completed her hat-trick after the break.
"To be honest I thought 'what's going on?'" Wiegman replied when asked what was going through her head at the break. "You go through the match, you have your plan, you talk to players and you expect a very competitive match of course.
"Norway has a very good squad, their front line is really good. But we just kept them away from our goal and that was really nice to see. To be honest I thought: 'what's happening?'"
Having netted England's decisive goal in their considerably cagier 1-0 victory over Austria in the group opener five days earlier, Mead hit the headlines again on Monday night, capping a terrific performance where she terrorised left back Julie Blakstad with a hat-trick.
Her second goal was the pick of the bunch, waltzing through three Norwegian challenges before slotting home.
The Arsenal winger admitted the entire team were taken aback by their own first half performance.
"I think we were very surprised in the way the game panned out (in the) first half especially," Mead said. "I thought our XI and subs that came on were incredible and we played a great game.
"I think if you'd told us that yesterday (that we'd win 8-0) we'd probably have all laughed at you. We couldn't believe it on the pitch as you could probably see by our faces. I thought every player was phenomenal but honestly we never would have dreamt of that."