Ignore the past, Southgate tells team ahead of Germany clash

Gareth Southgate has urged his England players to make their own history rather than worry about past failures when they face Germany in the Euro 2020 last 16.

Southgate’s side host Germany at Wembley on Tuesday in the latest chapter of a long-running rivalry with the Germans.

England won the 1966 World Cup final against West Germany at Wembley, but since then major tournament success against Die Mannschaft has been hard to come by.

Knocked out of the 1970, 1990 and 2010 World Cups by the Germans, England were also beaten by them in the Euro 96 semi-finals at Wembley.

Southgate missed a crucial penalty in that shoot-out loss 25 years ago and the possibility of another defeat to their arch rivals could weigh heavily on his players.

But the England manager wants the team to focus on their own qualities, rather than fear history repeating itself.

“I don’t need to demystify it,” Southgate said of the rivalry with Germany. “The history is an irrelevance for them.

“We’ve got boys born into the 2000s. It’s of no consequence to them what we did in, you know, Peter Bonetti in 1970 and what happened in 1990 and so on.

“Of course, they’re watching that stuff and getting a bit of an understanding of it but it’s not something we’re speaking to them about.

“This team have put down lots of historical performances in the last couple of years, made their own history, made their own stories and this is how they should view this game.

“It’s an opportunity. We’ve only won one knockout match in a European Championship as a country, so they’ve got a great chance to go and be the first team since 1996 to do that.”

England have grinded their way to the last 16 without defeat, but they struggled to impress in group stage wins over Croatia and the Czech Republic either side of a dour draw with Scotland.

Germany have been even more inconsistent, Joachim Loew’s side losing to France, impressing in a win over holders Portugal before barely scraping the draw against Hungary they needed to reach the last 16.

Southgate has no intention of underestimating the four-time World Cup winners.

“We have to be good enough to beat Germany and a very good German team,” he told ITV.

“I think they’ve got at least four World Cup winners, innumerable Champions League winners in that team, so although everybody’s dismissing them, very, very experienced big game players.

“We know this is a fixture that could easily have ended up being one far later in the tournament.

“They’ve come through a very strong qualifying group and we’ll have to be at our very best to win the game.”

England’s solid defence has been encouraging for Southgate, but the lack of attacking impetus has frustrated fans.

However, Southgate is irritated by the suggestion his side have been playing with the handbrake on.

“Well, those things are always our ambition,” he said when asked about playing with more freedom and speed.

“I mean we’ve played four attacking players in the matches we’ve played so far. We don’t say to the players ‘don’t play the ball forward’, ‘don’t move the ball quickly’, ‘don’t attack’.”

Germany’s Goretzka hopes to make impact against England: Having used last year’s Covid-19 lockdown to pack muscle on to his frame, Leon Goretzka is set to bulk up Germany’s midfield against England.

Germany coach Joachim Loew is under pressure to shake things up in the middle of the park for the knockout stage after neither Toni Kroos nor Ilkay Gundogan impressed in Wednesday’s nail-biting 2-2 draw with Hungary.

Bayern Munich star Goretzka has been limited to cameo roles at this European Championship after recovering from a torn thigh in May, yet he has still made an impact.

He came within a whisker of scoring in the 4-2 drubbing of Portugal as a second-half substitute, then equalised with a thunderbolt strike against Hungary.

“We have no doubts now and are full of confidence,” Goretzka told German television after the final whistle in a warning to England.

Loew was certainly impressed with his “great” performance against Hungary. “He brought in a lot of pace and made deep runs”, the coach said.

After Bundesliga matches were halted in March 2020, as Germany went into lockdown due to Covid-19, Goretzka returned from the two-and-a-half-month break noticeably much more muscular.

He says bulking up paid dividends.

“I can safely say that since I have had these muscles, I go into the games with a different feeling,” he told the Deutsche Bahn magazine.

“It literally made me stronger, you could call it a protective coat.”

Agencies