GARETH SOUTHGATE talked to England stars about his Euro 96 penalty agony against Germany – even before Tuesday’s blockbuster game was confirmed.
Midfielder Kalvin Phillips has revealed that Southgate relived his fateful miss shortly after the current squad met up for the Euros, as part of a presentation about shootouts.
Phillips said: “In one of the first meetings he showed us the penalty he missed.
“He has a laugh about it now. He tells us all about it.
“We were just speaking about penalty shootouts in general, that to get to the final we’re gonna have to eventually go through a penalty shootout, as every other team has.
“He was speaking of his experiences and of the experiences of when we were in the [2018] World Cup.
“It’s a bit up and down: in his experience it didn’t go too well, but in the World Cup it went well.
“It was a mixture. Just getting to know what people want to do and how people take penalties and stuff like that.”
England have won their last two competitive shootouts – in the last 16 of the World Cup against Colombia and in the third-place play-off of the 2019 Nations League finals against Switzerland.
But the nation will hope it doesn’t come to that and the Three Lions can win in normal time despite managing only two goals in their opening three games.
Phillips insists the team is ready to deliver as an attacking force – but not to expect him to contribute much more going forward after his assist for Raheem Sterling’s goal against Croatia.
The Leeds star told West Yorkshire Sport Daily: “We have a lot of great attacking players.
“A lot of people are saying that we haven’t seen much of them.
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“But I see two hours of them every single day. I can tell you they are all very confident and just waiting for the chance to get their name out there.
“I’m a defensive player. In the Croatia game I got an assist and everyone was thinking I would be a number eight getting assists every game.
“But that’s not really what I do. I’m winning the ball back and giving it to the better players!”
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Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
