If everything goes as Gareth Southgate hopes over the next few weeks, we will look back on 2017 as the year when England’s new future was born. The planning began far earlier and England’s senior team burst into life the following year, but 2017 was the annus mirabilis for England’s age-group squads. They became the first country in history to win three major men’s underage tournaments in a single year.
There are footprints of those successes dotted across England senior setup. Mason Mount and Aaron Ramsdale won the Under-19 European Championship and are in Qatar. Several members of the Under-20 World Cup-winning squad just missed out on selection: Fikayo Tomori, Dean Henderson, Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Before 2017 we worried about pathways. Then the kids forged their own path because their talent demanded it.
Nobody epitomises that talent more than Phil Foden. At the Under-17 World Cup, as England gained revenge for a European Championship final defeat with 5-2 victory over Spain, a diminutive, technical attacking midfielder stood tallest. Foden won the Golden Ball and scored twice in the final. It really did feel like we were watching our future. Foden could see his own mapping out.
“It was at youth level but there were still a lot of people watching – something back then that we weren’t used to, playing on such a big stage,” Foden says from England’s training camp. “And it changed some of our lives forever. With how much we got talked about in the media and things.”
Foden jokes that he’s not sure many players in the current squad realise that they are already team-mates with a World Cup winner. If that cheekiness suggests self-belief, he knows only too well how much that can assist an international team.
“I remember strongly the team [Steve Cooper’s Under-17s] just being so confident. Not being big-headed but we just knew that we were going to win the World Cup because of how good we were and the talent we had. Even when we were behind in the final, you could just see we carried on playing the same way and just believed that we were going to win it. It was so good just to be a part of that group. It was very special.”
Foden is brutally honest when asked about his England displays since making his senior debut in September 2020. He says that England have not seen his best, pointing particularly to his improved prolificacy at club level but only two goals scored for Southgate. Both came in a home victory over Iceland. Friday will mark exactly two years since Foden’s last senior goal and he understands that the burden on Harry Kane to contribute the goals must be eased. He also rejects claims that he belongs amongst the most stellar names at this tournament for technical ability.
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“I’m definitely not [world class],” he says. “But I like to think I could be there one day. It’s all about taking small steps in the right direction. Like I said, I just want to take my club form into the national team. I’ve got to score in big games and big finals to be world class. I know I’m capable of doing that so it’s something I strive for and look forward to.”
The idea, of course, is that everything comes together here. Foden knows that the margins are fine and the opportunities will not be around forever: he hit the post twice at Euro 2020 and then missed the final with a foot injury sustained when practising his volleyed passes. Competition for places is fierce too. If England start with a three-man defence, there is surely only room for two of Foden, Raheem Sterling, Bukayo Saka, Mason Mount, Jack Grealish and James Maddison.
But Foden also has something unique in this squad: being the star player in a World Cup-winning team. If you might suggest that it counts for nothing here, he would disagree with you. Foden wrestled with the disappointment of losing a major tournament final, preserved with the faith that he and his peers were good enough and then turned the second chance into glory by seizing control of his fate. How could that not be helpful, given the recent history of this team?
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