On this side of the channel, not only is “football coming home”, ask plenty of bookmakers and they’ll have you believe England will be cruising to glory in style. Head onto the continent and opinion is a little more divided, but few are underestimating the potential of Gareth Southgate’s side after their run to the 2018 World Cup semi-finals.
Three years have now passed since that relatively painless path to the last four Moscow. From that starting XI that faced Croatia, only Harry Kane can really be sure of a place in the rematch on 13 June at Wembley Stadium, with Harry Maguire expected to undergo a late fitness test.
Yet the shake-up Southgate has overseen in the intervening period is no bad thing; this is the generation of Phil Foden and Mason Mount, of Jude Bellingham and Jadon Sancho, a group brimming with fearless talent and some of the most promising players in Europe, as anyone who watched this season’s Champions League will testify.
What hasn’t changed is the sense of expectation following the Three Lions into a major tournament, even if it’s well-acknowledged that they could be stopped in their tracks by an opponent from the “Group of Death” early on. The path to the later stages will not be easy.
“As things have settled down I think the understanding of that last World Cup and how we got to the semi-final is a lot clearer,” former England midfielder Jermaine Jenas told i. “We never had a better chance of getting to a World Cup final and we failed. So you could look at it from a negative point of view.
“In my era, we ran into Brazil in 2002 with Ronaldinho, Rivaldo and Ronaldo, Portugal in Euro 2004, Portugal again in 2006 with Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Figo. That’s not to say Croatia weren’t a top team, with Luka Modric and Ivan Perisic and Ivan Rakitic. They had world-class players, but we didn’t really believe.
“What’s different now is we have players that have won Champions Leagues and major titles. There’s the obvious [favourites] Portugal, Germany and France, but there’s no doubt in my mind that getting to a final is the only thing that will be seen as success for England. The only way England fans would forgive anything but that is if we ran into France in the quarter-final.”
Of those Champions League finalists, Chelsea and Manchester City’s English players joined the group late for additional recovery time after the showpiece in Porto.
Mason Mount will go into the tournament a champion, Foden as a runner-up. There are squads in which that might present potential fireworks, but Jenas has been impressed by the cohesion of Southgate’s team – a component the England sides of previous tournaments lacked.
“Listen to players like Mount, Declan Rice, Foden – they talk like they’ve been playing international football their whole lives,” he said. “In the camps I was in, we had top players but there wasn’t that togetherness. It was like ‘here’s 11 world-class players, go and play’. This group actually get on, they like each other, they play as a team.
“It goes deeper than the XI. If Jack Grealish isn’t quite ready, we’ve got Foden who can pop over to the left, Sancho, [Raheem] Sterling – so much depth in a lot of areas.”
Southgate’s chief headache will be in attack, while he is also sweating on the fitness of Jordan Henderson. There is a sense that how England shape up in central midfield could define their approach. It is a choice between stagnation and creativity, innovation or security.
“The problem with England is if they have Rice and Kalvin Phillips, they play right next to each other and don’t move,” Jenas says. “Everything starts to go across and you create a big gap between the back three and the midfield. And everyone’s saying ‘all these forward players – where are they?!'”
The “Enjoy the Rivalry” campaign is part of Heineken’s exclusive UEFA EURO 2020 beer partner rights that enables the brand to be served across all stadiums, Football Villages and Fan Zones across the 11 host cities
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from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3gkAiDC
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