Overall there must have been half a dozen occasions when Gareth Southgate was asked whether he could understand the common perception that England had suddenly found themselves in a position whereby they might have a considerably better chance to reach a World Cup final than many people could have anticipated at the start http://www.officialravenslockerroom.com/elite-c.j.-mosley-jersey of this competition.
Southgate chose his words carefully to make sure he could not be accused of sounding presumptuous or, worse, of saying anything that might inadvertently end up being part of José Pekerman’s team-talk for Colombia.
He made the point that Marcus Rashford was eight years old on the last occasion England won a knockout tie in a World Cup – or any major tournament – and everyone knew why he was saying it.
Southgate’s only lapse came when he talked about Tuesday’s encounter being England’s “biggest game for 10 years”. He meant 12 years because, at the risk of being pedantic, England did not qualify for Euro 2008. But yes, it is the biggest game since England played Portugal in the 2006 World Cup, featuring a red card for Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo’s infamous wink and yet more evidence that Vince Biegel Womens Jersey England are not made for penalty shootouts.
Southgate prefers to speak in plain English, not clichés, so he refrained from using the age-old phrase about “taking each game as it comes”. That, however, was the gist of it. Very sensible, too, when history suggests England should not get too far ahead of themselves. Reminder: there were members of Roy Hodgson’s staff punching the air when Iceland scored the last-minute winner against Austria that meant they would be England’s first knockout opponents in Euro 2016.
Southgate did acknowledge that England had found themselves in the better half of the draw, with the possibility of a quarter-final against Sweden or Switzerland to follow and, beyond that, a semi-final against Russia or Croatia and no way of meeting France or Brazil until the final.
England’s base in the pine forests of Repino may be secluded but Southgate is in enough contact with the wider world to http://www.officiallightningproshop.com/Carter_Verhaeghe_Jersey understand that the fervour is building back home. “I am not surprised,” he said. “Whenever people say ‘I don’t care about international football’ that tends to be during the season. Then you come to a big tournament and it is not just football fans, it is grandads, it is aunts, everyone, supporting the team. And, for some reason, they like these lads.”
His bigger point was that this was not a time to think of any other match apart from the next one. “That was a trap we’ve fallen into in the past,” he said. “I C.J. Mosley Jersey can see everybody is more excited but we have to think separately, otherwise we just get carried away on the wave of emotion and we would not be thinking clearly about what we have to affect. We have to control the bits we have to control. But we would be foolish to focus on longer into the tournament.”
Again it came back to the Iceland game and the mistake many people made of assuming England were set for a quarter-final against France in Paris. Hodgson and his assistant, Ray Lewington, did not even bother going to the Iceland-Austria game to make a personal check their next opponents, preferring instead to spend the day sightseeing and going on a boat journey down the river Seine. Even now, two years on, it seems like a remarkable oversight and listening to Southgate it was clear he felt the attitude of the players was wrong, too.
“A few of these players, in the last championships, were in a fixture they thought they should win. Then, once they went behind, they suddenly felt that approach wasn’t correct. We won’t fall into that trap again, against a really good team. It is one of many games that we have unpicked because it would be silly not to look at previous tournaments and try to identify what we can learn.”
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