Gareth Southgate says the current England squad now has the belief and desire to win the country’s first major honour since 1966.
England can qualify for next year’s European Championship in Germany over the course of this round of fixtures if they beat Ukraine in Poland today and other results go their way.
Southgate, who is set to select Jordan Henderson and Harry Maguire for the qualifying group C match, has led England to a final, a semi-final and a quarter-final in the past three major tournaments and spoke of a change in expectation. “They have had a lot of success at club level and for a lot of them the missing piece is something with England, which they know would be bigger than anything else they have achieved,” he said. “The whole group are determined on that.
“There is definitely belief and they definitely have huge desire. They are really responsive and I can’t speak how highly we feel to be able to work with them every day. This group want challenge, they want targets and obstacles to overcome.
“That’s served us well over a period of time. We have been to a lot of big countries and won there for the first time in decades, or got to the final rounds of tournaments for the first time in decades.
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“The job is to get the best out of the players you have. The quality of the players you have determines the best way to go and get a result in certain games. When we started a long time ago we didn’t have the quality of wide players we have now.
“For some players, it will be probably their last chance to win something, some will be at their peak, and some have still got space to grow. I don’t see the team falling off a cliff after the next tournament. There’s enough youngsters that still have their best years ahead of them. It’s a good balance.”
Maguire, who is set to start in Wroclaw, is put through his paces as Harry Kane waits his turn
LEWIS STOREY/GETTY IMAGES
Southgate backed both Henderson and Maguire to start on what will be an emotional night in Wroclaw. Henderson faced criticism from the LGBTQ+ community during the week for the way he justified his move to the Saudi Pro League, and Maguire has not started a Premier League game for Manchester United this season.
“I don’t pick the team based on external reaction as you’ll be well aware over the course of seven years,” Southgate
said. “But he [Henderson] is a very experienced professional. He is very mature at handling any situation. He’s trained really well this week, the whole group have. I’ve been really pleased with the approach to everything.
“Harry knows where our support is. He knows he has to keep playing well for us and I think over the next few weeks given what’s happening with their [Manchester United’s] squad with injuries he may well have a lot more minutes for them as well.
“I haven’t spoken to him about his situation this week, I have in the past few weeks. Obviously he got into the game the other day at a critical point, so as a defender that’s not ideal, to come into a game at that situation, but of course he’s a very experienced player.”
Southgate also paid tribute to the development of Jude Bellingham since his move to Real Madrid.
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“He has a huge maturity and he has a good emotional intelligence,” Southgate said . “He has had to go into a dressing room and an interesting dynamic where some world-class players are there, and he is there to ultimately take their place. But knowing him, he will have approached them off the pitch with huge respect and will have gone into the training sessions and the games ready to compete and show what a good player he is.
“He found that balance brilliantly when he first joined us and I have no doubt that is what has happened while he has been there.”
