City’s Simons receives late England under-20s call
HULL City midfielder Xavier Simons has seen his season prolonged by being called up for England’s Under-20s.
The former Chelsea youngster was drafted in to replace Aaron Ramsey to face Tunisia in the World Cup opener last night after the Aston Villa man pulled out due to injury on Sunday.
Simons, who has made 13 appearances across all competitions since moving to the MKM Stadium last year, has joined up with the Young Lions in La Plata, Argentina.
City tweeted: “A late international call-up for Xavier Simons!
“The #Younglions begin their #U20WC campaign against Tunisia on Monday! Congratulations, Xavi!”
After taking on Tunisia, England’s U20s face Uruguay on Thursday, before their final group match with Iraq on Sunday.
The top two nations and the four best thirdplace teams will qualify from the six groups for the round of 16.
The quarterfinals are scheduled to take place June 3-4, with the semi-finals on June 8 before the final is staged at the La Plata Stadium on Sunday, June 11.
Bristol City midfielder Alex Scott said: “I’m buzzing. I can’t wait. It’s been said quite a bit that no team has ever won the Under-19 Euro’s and Under-20 World Cup back-to-back so we want to be the first team to do that.
“Obviously, as the European champions, we understand there’s a lot of pressure on us.
“However, we’re going to take that in our stride and perform to our best ability.
“We are such a tight-knit group, and I think that helps with what happened last summer. Ever since then, we have been getting closer and closer. So, it’s important we stick together and get through the next month or so doing as well as we can.
“We know we’ll have support from all over the country, like we did last year, so we’ve just got to show everyone back home what we’re about and hopefully go all the way and win it.”