Southgate’s England get luck of the draw
Southgate enjoys luck of the draw CHARLES SALE
ENGLAND manager Gareth Southgate was unsurprisingly beaming with delight after his team received a very generous World Cup draw in Moscow’s Kremlin State Palace.
The challenge of Belgium, Tunisia and debutants Panama looks a good deal easier than the group of death in Brazil three years ago that prompted former FA chairman Greg Dyke’s infamous cut-throat gesture.
Drawing Tunisia in Group G left Southgate feeling nostalgic for ‘one of the best days’ of his life, when he helped England beat Tunisia 2-0 in Marseille in their 1998 World Cup opener.
‘Tunisia takes me back to Marseille, one of the best days of my life, playing my first game in the World Cup,’ he said. ‘It was an incredible atmosphere down there, a brilliant day.
‘To be leading England out into that same occasion, I am hugely proud. It really takes you back to the pureness of football and the excitement everyone at home will be starting to feel knowing what the games are going to be and where.
‘It’s really exciting to visualise who we are playing, when we play them and where we will play.
‘The first game will be a little bit later than it could have been. It is interesting to start later and what that might mean to the players at the end of the season.’
Despite his visible delight, Southgate is not taking the opposition lightly.
He admitted: ‘We have just come from two tournaments where Costa Rica and Iceland knocked us out. It would be folly for us not to be serious about our preparation. We have to get that period of training, recovery and freshness right.
‘We know pretty much everything about Belgium. That will capture everyone’s imagination at home. They probably have the best team they’ve ever had. I know manager Roberto Martinez really well.’
Martinez responded: ‘Gareth is a gentleman, someone I admire and I wish him the best of luck — apart from the game against Belgium.’
Elsewhere in the draw, hosts Russia were given about as good a chance of advancing as they could have hoped for — in a group with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay — while Iberian neighbours Portugal and Spain were joined in Group B by Morocco and Iran. France, Australia, Peru and Denmark make up Group C.
Diego Maradona, bizarrely wearing a bow-tie, helped make the draw but it was Argentina’s Group D which is perhaps the closest to a ‘Group of Death’, with the South American giants facing Iceland, Croatia and Nigeria.
Brazil, Switzerland, Costa Rica and Serbia were drawn in Group E, with defending champions Germany in Group F alongside Mexico, Sweden and South Korea.
Poland, Senegal, Colombia and Japan make up Group H, which is where England’s potential roundof-16 opponent would come from, not that Southgate or anybody else connected with the Three Lions would ever discuss that possibility out loud.