FUTURE’S IN THE HANDS OF FOD
Already a World Cup winner, Foden is the player Southgate needs
PHIL FODEN already has a medal which most of his England team-mates still dream about.
It is from the Three Lions’ Under-17s World Cup triumph in 2017, when Foden scored twice in the final against Spain and was voted the player of the tournament.
No wonder the 20-year-old has been built up as the future of English football. The Manchester City midfielder, in the senior squad for the first time, is a prodigious talent who is starting to live up to the hype.
Foden has already won the Premier League with City in 2019 and experiences even at a young age for club and country have left him wanting more.
“If you win youth tournaments it can give you the experience to go and win one with the first team,” said Foden about the 2017 success.
“Winning the World Cup definitely helped me playing on a big stage and not to feel the pressure so much. I have played many big games for Man City now and I have learned to cope with the fans and the pressure. The medal is at my parents’ house in the cabinet. I go there quite a lot, so I see it all the time. Sometimes I will walk past and just take a look at all the trophies I have won and just go through it.”
The reason Foden has been built up is that he is something different. He is a creative force. It is difficult to work out exactly where his s best position is but, in the latter stages of last season, he became a regular fixture in Pep Guardiola’s City side.
His passing, vision and confidence on the ball makes him the player
Gareth Southgate has yearned for. Foden says he always idolised City team-mate David Silva but has also watched clips of Paul Gascoigne. He said: “I liked David Silva ever since he came to the club and I got to watch him live in training, so that is probably the player I looked up to most and tried to learn from. Hopefully he could be back as a coach.” Foden believes England’s youngsters now get the chances they deserve in senior football whereas they did not in the past. Starting with his former City academy team-mate
J a d o n Sancho
( left), who w en t to
Germany to kick on his career.
Foden said: “What
Jadon did at such a young age – going to Dortmund – there are not many players who could have played at such a high level and performed so well. I was impressed.
“But there are more young players breaking through now. It shows academies have great coaches teaching them the right things to play in the first team.”
Foden is single-minded in his ambition and while fear used to be the biggest threat to the England team, that will not be the case with the next generation.
“We are a young team and nothing fazes us,” he said. “We just go out and play our football.
“That is a good thing because we don’t think too much and we can start controlling games now.
“We have the players for that and I’m confident for the future.”