Young guns are driving Dier on
ERIC DIER says the senior England squad are feeling the pressure from the youngsters after their recent tournament triumphs and that the only way next summer’s World Cup will be successful is if they bring home the trophy.
England’s Under-17s, who hit back from 2-0 down to beat Portugal 3-2 in the first game of a mini-tournament in Chesterfield last night, won their World Cup 12 days ago.
In the summer England also lifted the Under-20 World Cup by beating Argentina, Italy, Mexico and Venezuela and shortly afterwards, the Under-19 side were crowned European Champions.
Tottenham and England star Dier firmly believes it is now up to the senior side to follow their lead.
He said: “It is fantastic that the other age groups have done so well. It is fantastic for England as a country and puts more pressure on us to do well.
“Winning tournaments is fantastic for the youth system and proves within the younger age groups the plan in place is working, so it is brilliant from that point of view.
“At senior level, it has been a long time since England have had a good international tournament and winning it is really the only way I see it as being successful.
“There is a long way to go. This is a new group which has come together since the Euros. It is a young group, lots of young faces and the margin for progression is huge.”
Even the Under-21s outshone most senior England sides by reaching the last four of their own European Championships, inevitably losing in the semi-finals to Germany on penalties.
Already, Gareth Southgate has been keen to promote a number of those players and, ahead of England’s clash with Germany at Wembley tomorrow, Dier says the stream of young talent is keeping everybody on their toes. “It is the way it has to be,” he said. “Playing for your country is the pinnacle of football. It is what you all want to do and it has to be special. You always have to be on your toes to get the call-up otherwise you can become complacent.”
Dier, of course, is not so long in the tooth, the 23-year-old only making his own international debut against Spain this week two years ago.
The learning curve has been steep, though, and culminated in impressive performances for Spurs against two of the biggest sides in the world, Manchester United and Real Madrid.
“To be honest, after the United game I felt personally and collectively quite confident – it is important not to just look at the result sometimes,” he said. “I took a lot of confidence from that as I did the Madrid game.
“When you play against the best teams in the world and the best players in the world and you perform how we did, that does give you a lot of confidence moving forward.
“Before you have done it, you don’t know if you can do it or not. Now that we have, we can look further forward and past that.”
Dier has not always had such self-belief – a fact laid uncomfortably bare in the recently-published Mauricio Pochettino diary of last season entitled Brave New World.
In particular, no punches were pulled about an awkward spell nearly a year ago when Dier was accused of being swayed by overtures from Jose Mourinho and Manchester United before a four-hour heart-to-heart to discuss his dip in form.
“Things happen and things change and confidence is a funny thing. But it goes up and down and does so in any sport,” was all Dier was prepared to say. That particular book is closed.