“What happened with the pizza advert?” Jordan Henderson asked, his face scrunching in confusion.
There was a vague attempt at explaining to the midfielder how his England manager had once appeared in a Pizza Hut advert with a paper bag over his head a few months after the humiliation of missing the decisive penalty against Germany to eliminate England from the semi-finals of Euro 96, before it was decided the best course of action was to move on to the next line of questioning.
That’s the thing, for this England squad. While for the vast majority of adults Euro 96 is the immediate reference point when the prospect of England vs Germany at a major tournament arises, for this current crop of England players – one of the youngest ever taken to a World Cup or European Championship – Gareth Southgate’s saved penalty does not immediately spring to mind.
Vice-captain Henderson, who celebrated his 31st birthday last week, is the second-oldest member of the squad (he is a couple of weeks younger than Kyle Walker). When asked about his memories of the fixture what he instantly turned to was not Euro 96 but the 4-1 defeat at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, a game England fans remain adamant the country would have won had Frank Lampard’s shot that clearly crossed the line not been ruled out as a goal, despite the eventual lopsided score line.
“In recent years you look at the goal over the line game,” Henderson said. “That was the stand-out match against Germany in recent years.”
It’s understandable, when you consider Henderson was born midway through Italia 90, and was only six years old when the Euros came to England and Southgate and Co delivered that memorable but heart-breaking three weeks.
Many of Henderson’s team-mates weren’t even born. Southgate’s squad have an average age of 24.8 years – the third youngest in the tournament, behind Spain and Turkey – meaning most of them were born after that sizzling summer.
And afterwards, France would win the World Cup and European Championship in successive tournaments and Brazil the World Cup before the youngest member of the squad – 17-year-old Jude Bellingham – was born.
It shocked many, for example, when Phil Foden arrived at St George’s Park at the start of Euro 2020 with a dyed-blond Barnet. Quite the bold statement, it seemed, for a 21-year-old to mimic Paul Gascoigne, who turned up at Euro 96 with an almost identical style, at a time when many were hoping Foden could emulate the England legend.
Nobody realised, however, that Foden had, in fact, copied Manchester City team-mate Sergio Aguero, who had dyed his hair a few months previously. And why would he copy a player at a tournament staged in 1996? Foden wasn’t born until May 2000.
That’s not to say the players no longer care about the importance of the rivalry. “It is a special game, definitely,” Henderson said. “It is a special game for the fans, the players, for everyone, for the neutral watching. It is a big game. It is very exciting. The players must stay focused and just give everything on the pitch and have no regrets.”
But they don’t dwell on the history of the fixture as much as you might expect. They care about the next few days preparing at St George’s Park and the team who they will face on Tuesday night in the last 16 of the Euros, not the one who knocked England out a quarter of a century ago.
“For us as players we don’t really tend to think too much about the history, it’s about the here and now for us,” Henderson said. “We’re focusing on the challenge ahead, what Germany are good at, the areas we can exploit, what we can do to hurt them, all of the things we can actually focus on and then do in the game. That’s all our energy goes into really. We don’t get too caught up on the history and what has happened previously.”
Even if Southgate considered bringing up that penalty miss and his self-deprecating pizza advert to motivate his players by displaying vulnerability in an inspiring pre-match speech, they probably wouldn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
More from i on Euro 2020
- England aren’t ‘rubbish’ and Southgate isn’t a ‘fraud’ – we just need a bit of patience
- What the Premier League could learn from Euro 2020’s controversy-free referees
- The football nomad who became a hero for his role in saving Eriksen’s life
- How Ronaldo’s Coca-Cola stunt could change the face of football sponsorship
- How to watch every Euro 2020 match on TV and online in the UK
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3dd3WK7
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