DAY MAGUIRE LOOKED LIKE BECKENBAUER
ONE of the biggest barriers I had to clear early in my career was my appearance: people used to look at me and assume I couldn’t play football. It held me back at times and it has been there my whole life. I wonder whether the same may be true of Harry Maguire. He might look rough and ready but he is a top defender and there is so much more to his game than that, as he proved with his performances for England. We played Hull last season and, apart from the quality of his defending, I remember him at one point in the game doing a step-over and then pinging a pass 70 yards across the field into feet. I thought to myself: ‘Hang on? Is this Beckenbauer!’ I was convinced he’d end up at a top-six club. I’m not being disrespectful to Leicester, but if he played for Manchester City people would be talking about him a lot more than they are now. A number of players can feel proud with how they performed at Wembley, but none more so than Maguire. Clean sheets against Germany and Brazil offered signs of progress for England as a whole. Of course everyone wants to see goals, but with Gareth Southgate preparing for the World Cup, it is absolutely vital to have our defence in order.
If we can defend like that in Russia next summer — no European nation conceded fewer goals than England (three) in qualifying — we will have a chance. In major tournaments, you have to stay in games to reach the latter stages.
Look at Portugal. They won the last European Championship by playing that way. Yes, it wasn’t pretty at times and they didn’t win one game in the group stage, but it was effective and they ended up lifting the trophy, which is all that matters.
I know it was obvious how much more comfortable on the ball Brazil were against England, and they were a joy to watch at times on Tuesday.
We need to keep possession a lot better than we did, but being tough to beat is a good platform to work from. It’s been proved you can win tournaments that way.