Improving is child’s play, thanks to Pep
CALVERT-LEWIN: Blade GOING back to Bramall Lane means Dominic Calvert-Lewin has no shortage of motivation as he seeks to play a starring role for England Under-21s in their Euro 2019 qualifier against Ukraine tonight.
The Everton forward is Sheffield born and bred and will have a small army of family and friends in the stands. And he has been getting endless ribbing from the rest of the squad on his return to the club where it all started.
“All of the lads know I’m a Blade,” said Calvert-Lewin. “They’ve been giving me stick, saying, ‘I bet you’re looking forward to this one’. And they’re right.
“Sheffield United is still a huge part of my life so going back, although it might feel a bit strange at first, will be a great occasion.”
Senior England boss Gareth Southgate holds Calvert-Lewin in such regard that the 21-yearold was called up to train with the senior squad last November. He says he is not too disappointed to miss out on a senior call this time around, knowing youth is on his side.
“I’m still young,” said Calvert-Lewin. “I know there was speculation but I need to be scoring goals and affecting games. It’s my dream to play for England so it would have been nice but this time it wasn’t to be.”
Yet he remains confident he can cut it at the top level and dreams of playing on the biggest stage of all.
He said: “I do believe I’m ready. I back myself. I believe in my ability. The more I play, the more goals I will score.
“I’m working hard in training to become a better player every day and I do believe I can play for England.” RAHEEM STERLING is finally growing up fast. First, though, he needed to be taken back to when he was an eight-year-old.
One of the most enigmatic England players of a generation, the Manchester City player does not speak to the media very often.
It turns out he is very good at it. For a start, he is able to illustrate with the most simple of examples something that opposition managers have struggled to work out all season.
Why is he playing quite this well this season under Pep Guardiola?
“He makes everyone do the simple stuff,” Sterling says. “When I used to dribble, I’d be on the wing and I’d control it with the outside of my foot: that slows the ball down.
“Pep Guardiola brings you back to what you used to do with the Under 8s, open your body up, get the rhythm going again. It’s little details like that.
“It’s stuff I already know. When you’re playing a game you probably don’t pick up on it. Little touches outside your foot, trapped under your foot, he’s telling you to get to the left-back quicker, open your body out and take the ball with you instead of just controlling it and stopping. Little details like OLD HEADS: Bonucci chats with Buffon at Wembley yesterday REPORTS that, and you’re thinking, ‘I already know this’.”
But then the devil is in the detail, and it turns out that Sterling has a fair share of devilment about him – and yesterday in the media theatre at Tottenham’s training ground, he was not afraid to show it.
He has scored 20 goals in 37 appearances this season, it was pointed out. How does that square with 36 caps and only two goals – neither of them in the past two-and-a-half years?
“I think it is because the gaffer takes me off early!” he says instantly. Manager Gareth Southgate is sitting next to him.
In fairness, half of Sterling’s goals this season have come in the last 10 minutes of games. In his seven starts for Southgate, Sterling has lasted an average of 72 minutes.
Joking aside, from John Barnes to Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard, certain players have often been accused of not being able to recreate their club form while wearing the Three Lions on their shirt, and Sterling is aware of the shortfall so far at international level. “It is a different environment,” he says, “different set-up. At the end of the day I should be scoring a lot more for England, and I put a lot of pressure on myself.
“I have also done that at my club – I wasn’t scoring a lot of goals there as well – but there was a turnaround and I started scoring.
“It will be a matter of time. That’s what it is, once you get back into that rhythm you will start getting balls that drop to you and positions where it wasn’t before. I do have that feeling that it is going to come soon.”
Southgate certainly thinks so, having noticed a difference just this week in training. “You can see the confidence in him,” he says with almost avuncular pride.
“You can see the positions he’s taking up, his belief in front of goal; he’s scored more goals this week in training than I’ve ever seen.
“That’s not necessarily because he’s technically better, he’s just thinking about the types of finishes a little bit more. Not snatching at things. Passing things into the net.”
Sterling has also grown up off the field. “I wasn’t as professional as I am now in terms of treatment, massage, ice baths, stuff like that,” he says. “Just growing up and LEONARDO BONUCCI says the agony of Italy missing out on the World Cup will only hit home when he is watching the tournament on TV. But the AC Milan defender believes that his country’s stricken national team, who he admits are starting again from almost Year Zero, can use Gareth Southgate’s reviving young England as a role model in how to rebuild. understanding, listening to people. That’s what’s working for me.”
For all his talk about “being loved”, it would be wrong to think that Sterling is overly sensitive and unable to take a good old-fashioned rollicking.
“Pep lets you know when he’s not happy with you,” he says. “I remember coming on against Crystal Palace. I lost the ball three times. I didn’t think I was going to play until the end of the season after he killed me in the dressing room.
“A manager like that brings the best out of you, when he makes sure to tell you when you’re in the wrong. If I’m getting judged on my football and doing badly, then OK. I accept that. If I had a bad game, I take it on the chin.
“Where I’m at my best is when I have got competition. When I feel I am under threat or under pressure, that brings the best out of me.”
The pressure of a nation’s hopes will be on him again this summer. Italy arrive at Wembley tonight under caretaker coach Luigi Di Biagio still in a state of shock after failing to qualify for the World Cup finals for the first time in 60 years, after they lost to Sweden in November.
Di Biagio himself is set to be replaced in early summer by a new permanent coach. Carlo Ancelotti and Roberto Mancini are the favourites, with Chelsea boss Antonio Conte and former Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri also in the running.
Bonucci, 30, a target for Conte at Stamord Bridge last summer and set to win his 77th cap as he leads his country out tonight, said: “It will be hard to watch the finals this summer.
“Then is when what happened will really hit home. We will be at home watching the World Cup on the TV rather than being there and playing. It hurts, I’m not going to lie.
“From a personal point of view, you never stop learning so playing at the World Cup is important for personal growth as well as to keep improving.
“But there is no looking back.
“The World Cup will come and go and then we need to work hard to get Italy back to the level it deserves to be. We need point