Boss Southgate urges England’s players to take their chance in Qatar
Gareth Southgate will tell England’s players to embrace their opportunity in Qatar to make this the best period in the national team’s history.
The Three Lions fly to the Gulf on Tuesday to ramp up their bid to replicate Sir Alf Ramsey’s heroes and win the
World Cup, having last summer reached a first major men’s final since that 1966 triumph.
Southgate’s side went on to lose the European Championship final to Italy on penalties and the mood has darkened since then due to a winless Nations League campaign that ended in relegation.
England expects and the pressure has built on the manager, but his only focus is increasing a sense of anticipation and excitement about what they can achieve in Qatar.
“With the players we want to talk to them about the excitement of going to a World Cup,” said Southgate, who led the side to the semi-finals in 2018.
“I think we understand the need to comment on the off-field things that surround this tournament, but we want the players to feel that enthusiasm that they’ve had since kids.
“That struck me when I was
speaking to them over the last few days, for better or worse, about going to a World Cup and what it means. We want to fuel that. The first couple of days we won’t be on the training pitch bar a couple that will need to do something.
“We just want them to transition from a hectic club schedule to thinking about England.
“We want to talk to them about the fact that this, whatever happens over the next four weeks, has been the second best period for English football. We can make it the best.”
Southgate would not give anything away about such plans, nor would he open up when asked about the impact of some England fans booing him at Molineux and in Milan. He said: “I don’t think what it was for me is important at this stage.
“My only focus is how do I help this team to have a brilliant tournament? And I think we’ve got a great chance.
“So, I know what this group of players have been capable of. They’ve been to the deep reaches of tournaments. They know what that feels like. They know they can do that again. There’s no reason why they can’t.
“That’s my sole focus. What people say or think about me is irrelevant. My job is to free the players of any of that. I’m excited for the tournament and they should be as well.”
Southgate is watching the final weekend of Premier League action from afar due to Covid-19 precautions that he hopes will not prevent England players from spending time with loved ones in Qatar.
He is hoping to avoid any late injury issues to his 26-man squad, although he will have been concened to see Leicester City midfielder James Maddison limp off after half an hour on the Foxes’clash at West Ham.
“We’re just being a little bit cautious about the Covid scenario,” he said.
“It’s probably overly careful but, you know, we feel we should. But we’ll be tracking everything. We’ve got a system where we can get all of the games live, so we’ll have that.
“And we’ve got medics at all the games just to make sure if any scans were needed, for example, that we’re onto it as quickly as possible.”
Measures are in place to help stave off the threat of coronavirus in Qatar. Precautions are logical, but Southgate is hoping that will not prevent those in the England camp from seeing families during the tournament.
“We’re still a little bit fluid on that,” he said. “We almost prefer to under-promise and over-deliver.
“We would like it to happen, we think it is a significant part of a team feeling comfortable. But none of us know what the transmission rate is out there.
“Families are going to be mixing in bigger numbers with people at the stadiums and things like that. We’re going to have to track that.”