Beever-Jones hits rapid hat-trick as Lionesses pummel Portugal 6-0 in Nations League | OneFootball

It doesn’t matter how you get your chance to shine, what matters is you take it, and on Friday night at a balmy Wembley Stadium the Chelsea forward Aggie Beever-Jones did just that in a 6-0 defeat of Portugal.

“Destroy them” was the message from manager Sarina Wiegman before kick-off, said Beever-Jones, and she obliged.

“As cliched as it sounds, Sarina said: ‘It’s a new kit, new England today. Go out there and put a graft in,’” said Beever-Jones. “I think her exact words were ‘Destroy them’, in her Dutch accent. For us, it was just executing the gameplan.”

Alessia Russo has nailed down the No 9 shirt following the retirement of Ellen White after the Euros in 2022, but a fitting substitute and challenger to her has been missing. Beever-Jones staked her claim in front of 48,531 fans, her hat-trick in a five-goal first-half blitz coming in only her second England start.

It was a heartening win for the Lionesses as they focus all eyes on this summer’s Euros in Switzerland. It also secured England second place in Nations League Group A3, two points behind Spain before they go head to head on Tuesday.

Wiegman’s England ship, so used to sailing under clear skies, hit choppier water this week, the retirement announcement of Euro 2022 winner Mary Earps, just 39 days out from the team beginning their title defence, sending shockwaves through St George’s Park.

Wiegman implied in April that Hannah Hampton had leapfrogged Earps in the pecking order, when she described the Chelsea goalkeeper as being “a little bit ahead”. It was hoped that Earps would act as the elder stateswoman of a group of young keepers and provide substantial backup to Hampton, with Anna Moorhouse and Khiara Keating currently uncapped.

Earps’ exit is undoubtedly a blow, as was the absence of Millie Bright, unavailable through choice for being “mentally and physically at my limits”. However, nothing buries bad news as well as good news and such an emphatic win over Portugal, with a starting XI looking a little different from how it will shape up in Switzerland, certainly helps.

It took just three minutes for Beever-Jones to put the home team ahead, pouncing on a loose ball after good pressure from Jess Park before putting it coolly beyond goalkeeper Inês Pereira. Two minutes later and England had their second. Jess Carter, fresh from a Concacaf Champions Cup win with Gotham FC, won the ball and it was worked to Mead. Her shot was blocked but the ball fell to Lucy Bronze, who headed into an empty net.

In her first Wembley start, Beever-Jones’ second goal arrived with a header from a Bronze cross. Mead joined the party for England’s fourth, Park shrugging off Dolores Silva before releasing her to nutmeg Catarina Amado and fire in.

Beever-Jones’s hat-trick was completed in the 33rd minute, making her the second England women’s player to score a Wembley treble after Mead. A long ball from Leah Williamson, one of five of Arsenal’s Champions League winners in the squad, alongside Mead, Lotte Wubben-Moy, Russo and Chloe Kelly, found the forward, who took a couple of touches before firing in low at the near post.

“She scores goals very easily and very well,” said Wiegman. “She has such quick feet and is keeping on them and shifting weight all the time in good positions. She is really tight on the ball. The team did well coming into positions so the connections were really good. She played really relaxed.”

It would be easy, and a little lazy, to describe Portugal, ranked 22nd in the world, as pushovers. They were poor defensively but this is a team who have been a small thorn in the side of Wiegman’s England. The Lionesses were held to a 1-1 draw in the reverse fixture in February and a 0-0 draw in a friendly on the eve of the World Cup in July 2023. In fact, England’s last victory against them came towards the end of Phil Neville’s tenure, a sloppy 1-0 win amid a sea of draws and defeats in October 2019.

England calmed down a little in the second half, but three changes around the hour re-energised the players, who have clawed their way to the end of a long season only to be straight back in with their national team. Substitute Kelly added the team’s sixth, heading in Mead’s cross.

There were no more goals but it was an emphatic and entertaining performance, the off-pitch drama comfortably excluded to leave England focused on preparing for the Euros.

Header image: [Photograph: Catherine Ivill/AMA/Getty Images]