England can make up for Euros disaster
THE only place England can make amends for the misery of Euro 2016 is at the next World Cup in Russia.
According to Eric Dier, winning qualifiers and friendlies isn’t enough.
He and his team-mates let themselves and their country down badly in France, and he views the Finals in Russia as the only place to restore their reputation.
“The only way to fix the image of one tournament is at another,” says the Tottenham midfielder.
“I don’t think we can repair it in qualifiers. We can only do it by going to the World Cup and doing well there.
“It’s about the fans going home thinking: ‘They gave it their best go. There was nothing more they could have done.’
“It’s going to take a long time to apologise for that game against Iceland.
“We were just terrible. I came off at half-time and I was sitting there thinking I was going to go home and couldn’t do anything about it.
“We should have just trusted ourselves to get it back but panic set in.
“Having grown up in Portugal, and having friends in their team, I wanted them to win the Euros when we were knocked out.
“I didn’t think they were better than us but they had a fantastic belief about them and that’s what counts.”
Having played and been educated in Lisbon, Dier could have been part of that squad through residency qualification.
“Never once did I think I should be playing for Portugal,” he says. “When I was younger, they spoke to my club, Sporting, but nothing came of it.
“I’m 100% English. A lot of Brazilians play for Portugal and they’re not Portuguese. I wasn’t a big fan of that.
“I always had the idea that I would play for England, even though I consider Portugal to be my home.”
If Dier lines up against Spain in Tuesday’s Wembley friendly, it will bookend an eventful 12 months for the 22-year-old.
Last November he made his England debut in Alicante, having played less than 40 Premier League games. Since then he’s been a regular under three different managers.
The latest is Gareth Southgate, who was Under-21 boss when Dier asked to be excused from the squad two years ago.
“It was a simple situation that was blown out of proportion,” he explains. “I’d only been at Tottenham for a few months, and I’d played every game up to the international break.
“Everything had been a whirlwind, and I just felt I needed to stay at the club for a couple of weeks because I was going into a dip.
“Gareth completely understood and was absolutely fine with it.
“I might have been a risk but I think in hindsight it’s proved to be the right decision.”