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Sarina Wiegman said she left the 17-year-old Erica Meg Parkinson speechless with her first call-up to the England squad for April’s World Cup qualifiers against Spain and Iceland.
The shock inclusion of the Singapore-born midfielder, who plays for the Portuguese first division side Valadares Gaia, comes less than six months after her first call-up to England’s under-23s, amid a rapid rise through the Lionesses’ youth setup.
Parkinson was part of the England side that reached the final of 2024’s Under-17 European Championship but is something of an unknown quantity to anyone other than the most knowledgable of women’s football aficionados.
Born to a Japanese mother and an English father, Parkinson speaks four languages and is eligible to play for Singapore, Japan, England or Portugal, where her family reside. They moved to Portugal partly because her brother, Denis, secured a move to Porto’s academy. He now plays for the Portuguese top-tier side Famalicão.
Parkinson has chosen to represent England, telling the BBC in November: “England were the first country that invited me into the national training centre. They sent a scout out to Portugal to see my games. I was playing with boys at that point. They saw some clips of me online and realised I was half-English.”
Wiegman said on Tuesday: “First of all, we called her up because we are a little bit low in depth in midfield with injuries to Ella Toone and Grace Clinton. So we have to look at who’s next and Erica has gone through the pathway, she plays in Portugal, she has done well with the under-23s.
“She is a very dynamic attacking midfielder who wants to go forward. [She] is also very aggressive and pretty technical. Of course, it is a big step from under-23s and the Portuguese competition to go into our senior level, but she gets the opportunity to show where she stands at our level.”
Parkinson made her under-23s debut in November against Norway and featured again in December against the United States. Wiegman said of calling Parkinson: “She was speechless, she said, but she was very happy, surprised and excited, of course.”
Wiegman’s squad also includes recalls after injuries for Beth Mead and Alex Greenwood, but Aggie Beever-Jones, Clinton and Toone are still injured.
In a rematch of the last World Cup and European Championship finals, the Lionesses face Spain at Wembley on 14 April before travelling to Reykjavik to face Iceland four days later. England top the qualifying group on goal-difference, narrowly ahead of Spain, after victories over Ukraine and Iceland. The group winners will progress automatically to next summer’s World Cup finals, with the other three nations going into the playoffs.
