DORTMUND — England manager Gareth Southgate has revealed he told his players to confront the fear he noticed in the opening Euro 2024 games and believes they are now unafraid to create history.
A surprising element of England’s slow start was how much anxiety was apparent on the pitch. It was an emotion that pervaded England teams of the past and one that Southgate worked hard to eradicate.
But, with pressure increasing to bursting point, Southgate spoke with players about meeting the challenge to regain the confidence he knows exists within.
“That’s been a fascinating experience to see the team have been fearful in the opening part,” Southgate said.
“Almost concerned about what could go wrong. We haven’t had that for a few years. Maybe that was expectation, was a lot of external things as well. But now they’re very much in a ‘what’s achievable, what’s possible’ mindset.
“We saw a truer reflection of ourselves in the last game and there was a lot within that performance to build on and take into the game [this evening].”
Southgate said that he and the players “spoke about it”, adding: “When you can sense that feeling you need to confront it.
“It’s no use avoiding it. In the end we sort of had to grind it out on the pitch.
“The Denmark game, the point we got, there’s a picture of players distraught. Every other team was celebrating with fans at that, we were on our knees.
“So I had to correct how they were viewing things. But that feeling was being reinforced so vocally and actively outside and they were picking up on that.”
Southgate boasts a fine record of reaching three semi-finals in the four major tournaments.
England were beaten in the last four of the 2018 World Cup by Croatia, beat Denmark to make the final of Euro 2020 and were knocked out in the quarter-final of the 2022 World Cup.
If they win here it will be the first time England have reached a major final outside of England.
“We’ve risen well to challenges over the years and used them as motivation to break new ground,” he added.
“These are opportunities to make a difference, that’s how we look at it.
“We don’t want to be burdened by what’s happened before. We’ve got to use this opportunity to change history as motivation and that’s how the players see it. It’s about their moment now, nothing that’s gone on in the past, none of that is their fault or concern.”
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