England manager Sarina Wiegman has predicted Brazil will be a tough opponent in the first ever women’s Finalissima on Thursday, with the reigning European champions hosting the reigning South American champions at a sold-out Wembley Stadium for intercontinental bragging rights.
To show unity ahead of the inaugural event, Brazil coach Pia Sundhage and captain Rafaelle Souza attended a joint press conference with Wiegman and Lionesses skipper Leah Williamson.
“It’s the first Finalissima so that’s really nice,” Wiegman said.
“it’s a great occasion, it’s here, there will be 90,000 people so it’s going to be a really exciting environment here. There are two teams that want to play football, that have a very good history in football, and I think it’s going to be a very exciting evening.”
Opposite number Sundhage, with 146 caps and 71 goals for Sweden, has a special relationship with Wembley after scoring the first goal in a women’s football match at the iconic original stadium where Sweden beat England 2-0 way back in 1989.
“For us, we have a little bit of an inexperienced team” the Brazil boss explained. “If you look at our squad, we’ve not got many players that have played in a World Cup. So this will be fantastic to see how they deal with big crowds and playing against a good team. That’s why I saw that every game is a teacher, and we have a chance to learn something after the game tomorrow.”
England remain unbeaten since Wiegman took over, remaining unbeaten against the likes of USA, Germany and Spain. More recently, the Lionesses held on to their Arnold Clark Cup title, winning the invitational mini-tournament once again in February. But Wiegman predicts a tougher challenge from the South American giants.
“At this moment, playing Brazil and Australia [next Tuesday[, gives us a new measure moment. We expect to be challenged more in defence too than we were in the Arnold Clark Cup,” she said.
“We expect that a little bit more…that gives us more information about our team and where our players are at the moment to move forward in our preparations for the World Cup.”
Away from the international setup, the respective Finalissima captains are teammates and firm friend. Both playing at Arsenal and have struck up a pretty impressive centre-back partnership since Rafaelle joined the North London club in January 2022.
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