Lionesses stutter past Iceland as new generation make their charge

Erica Parkinson celebrated her 18th birthday by sitting on the bench, watching England stutter to a 1-0 World Cup qualifying victory in Iceland thanks to an impressive second half by Hannah Hampton.

The attacking midfielder was a surprise selection from Sarina Wiegman for this international camp. A relative unknown as a result of playing her club football in Portugal for top-flight Valadares Gaia, Wiegman believes Parkinson is “ready” to participate in the senior squad.

Normally, she would have been with the under-23 group who beat the Netherlands and Sweden to win the U23 European competition. The stand-out player from those two ­fixtures was 17-year-old Chloe Sarwie, a left-back who made her first Women’s Super League start for Chelsea last month. Based on her performances, it is not unreasonable to wager that Sarwie makes the squad for the 2027 World Cup.

Both these teenagers are impressing at a time when it is ostensibly harder than ever for young players to get minutes. The ever-increasing quality of the WSL has caused concern that pathways for English players are being blocked. Clubs have better scouting networks, spend more money and are less risk-averse than ever before. It is factually true that English youngsters play less than they did five years ago. What a statistic like minutes cannot capture is quality. The coming age-group look ready to raise that bar significantly within the women’s game.

Academy coaches regularly talk about being able to see how much difference investment has made for younger age groups. Players are getting specialised training at the start of their careers in a way that did not exist five to 10 years ago.

Sarwie joined Chelsea three years before England first won the Euros in 2022, and could represent the first serious generation of players to ­benefit from the boom that came off the back of that.

Wiegman likes to rely on a ­settled core of experienced players. She made only two changes from Tuesday’s 1-0 win against Spain for the Iceland game.

In the end, the manager may have been happy that she did, with Hampton required to make several excellent saves in the last 20 minutes to preserve lead secured by Alessia Russo’s 21st-minute goal.

Wiegman is also clear that for younger players, the expectation is that they come in and experience a camp, rather than immediately pick up caps. Yet last summer was a masterclass in the use of a talented teenager. Michelle Agyemang was thrown in repeatedly to bail out England. Wiegman is sometimes criticised for being too predictable, but she is evidently ready to trust younger players if they are good enough. Iceland was England’s 500th ever game. This milestone could be the start of a great leap forward.

Photograph by Hulda Margret/Getty Images