Tag: England

Harry Kane believes England’s blistering qualification campaign has shown what Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup contenders are capable of.

The Euro 2024 runners-up are among the favourites for glory in North America next summer and a nation others will want to avoid in the December 5 draw.

England secured their spot at the finals with two games to spare and on Sunday completed a perfect qualification campaign, with Kane’s brace in a 2-0 triumph in Albania making it eight wins and eight clean sheets.

It is the first time a European team has achieved that feat when playing at least six World Cup qualifiers and underlined the potential of Tuchel’s side.

“Whenever you’re creating history, it shows that you’re on the right path,” England captain Kane said.

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“I think we’ve had a lot of great qualifying campaigns in recent history and we’ve topped that with this one, so we can be really proud of the hard work that we put in.

“I know sometimes we maybe don’t get the credit for these type of wins and campaigns, but we’ve done our job, we’ve done what we need to do and we’ve done it in style as well.

“We can be really proud of that and look forward to the new year now.”

England now only have two March friendlies before Tuchel names his World Cup squad as the back-to-back Euros runners-up seek to build on their near misses under Gareth Southgate.

Asked if they have sent a message to the rest of the world with their flawless campaign, Kane said: “Whether it’s a message or not (I am not sure), I think it just shows what we’re capable of.

“Not conceding a goal in all that time is obviously a great achievement in itself and the bottom line is clean sheets win you tournaments.

“Clean sheets got us to two finals and semi-finals, and when you get to the biggest games you need to be solid, you need to be compact, you need to be able to defend your box and we’ve shown we can do that.

“Then you add the players that we have in attack and in midfield, we’re a tough team to beat.

“But there’s a long way to go, we’re not going to get carried away. I think that’s the special nature of this group.

“We’re just looking forward to the next camp, obviously a little while now, but we go away, we rest up, and then we come back together in March and try to continue this momentum.”

England will be praying Kane can maintain his own form, having taken his goal tally to 28 for club and country this season.

“It’s hard to take it in,” the Bayern Munich striker added. “When you’re on a roll like this, you just want the next game to be around the corner.

“I spoke before in the (pre-match) press conference that it’s probably the best form I’ve been in and just the best overall play that I feel I’m playing at the highest level.

“We’ll see how many we can get. A long way to go in the season, so if I can continue this type of form and this type of run, it should be quite a big number come the end.”

Kelly fired in the decisive spot-kick as England beat Spain 3-1 in a penalty shootout to win Euro 2025, successfully defending the title they won three years ago after an enthralling game that ended 1-1 after extra time.

It was another spectacular turnaround from Sarina Wiegman’s side, who came back from two goals down to beat Sweden in a shootout in the last eight and beat Italy in the semi-finals with another extra-time goal from Kelly.

World and Nations League champions Spain made the breakthrough in the 25^th  minute as Ona Batlle crossed and the England defence was caught flat-footed, allowing Mariona Caldentey to head the ball past Hannah Hampton.

With Lauren James struggling due to an ankle injury, England were struggling, but Kelly came off the bench to replace her just before the break and it proved an inspired substitution from Wiegman.

Kelly helped close down England’s porous left flank and provided the cross for Alessia Russo to level in the 57^th  minute, the forward heading home her inch-perfect assist.

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Spain continued to monopolise the ball but could not find another goal before the end of normal time, and the story continued through extra time as they probed and probed, but could not break the English defence as the game finished 1-1.

The Spaniards got the shootout off to a great start when Cata Coll stopped Beth Mead’s effort, but England keeper Hannah Hampton saved from Caldentey and from Aitana Bonmati to put England in the driving seat.

Coll got Spain back into it with another one-handed stop to block Leah Williamson, but Spain substitute Salma Paralluelo hit her kick wide of the target.

That set the stage for Kelly to repeat her 2022 heroics, when she scored the extra-time winner over Germany that won them the title at Wembley.

Kelly made her trademark prancing run-up before smashing the ball into the net and peeling away in ecstasy to celebrate with her teammates in front of the England fans.

“I’m so proud, so proud of this team, so grateful to wear this badge, and I’m so proud to be English … I was cool, I was composed and I knew I was going to hit the back of the net,” Kelly said.

The final was the first time since the inaugural edition in 1984, in which England were beaten by Sweden, that the game was decided by a penalty shootout.

“Unbelievable, incredible, showing throughout this tournament we can come back when we go a goal down, and we have that grit. We’ve got English blood in us, so we never say die and we just keep going, and we did that today,” an elated Hampton said.

England goalkeeper Mary Earps has become the first female soccer player to be honoured with a wax figure at Madame Tussauds.

The Paris Saint-Germain player, who helped England finish runners-up at the 2023 Women’s World Cup, won a public vote for which Lionesses player should be on show at the London museum.

In a process that took more than a year of collaboration between the museum and Earps, the 31-year-old is dressed in the green England keeper’s kit she wore in the 2023 World Cup final.

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My artwork uses a fractured and multi-layered approach, and this shows the deeper emotional and intellectual layers of Alan Turing himself.

“To make this mark as the first female footballer to have a figure at Madame Tussauds London is incredibly special,” Earps told reporters. “This is not about me. This is a representation of how women’s football has grown, and the trajectory it’s on.”

England, who have clinched a spot at the 2025 European Championship where they will be defend the trophy, host Olympic champions the United States in a friendly at Wembley on Nov. 30.

Jurgen Klopp has ruled out a return to coaching in the near future, including for the vacant England job, saying Wednesday “as of today, that’s it for me as a coach”.

Speaking at a German Football Coaches Association meeting in Wuerzburg, the former Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund mentor said: “I didn’t decide to stop on a whim, it was a general decision.”

Klopp stood down as Liverpool boss at the end of the 2023-24 season citing exhaustion after 23 years in club management.

The 57-year-old was almost immediately linked to several vacant jobs, including as England coach when manager Gareth Southgate stood down the Three Lions lost the Euro 2024 final in Berlin.

 “I’m looking for peace and quiet, I’m one hundred percent in the here and now and I’m enjoying it.

 “It was just time to step aside and put the whole thing to rest,” said Klopp, adding that making a special exception for a club or country “would be a great loss of face.”

The coach said he was enjoying retirement but would work again in football at some point, even if his days in the dugout were over.

 “I’m too young to just play padel tennis and spend time with my grandchildren.

 “Will I be a coach again? I would actually rule that out at the moment. Let’s see how it looks in a few months. At the moment, there’s nothing in the pipeline.

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 “We can perhaps talk about it again in a few months.

 “I still want to work in football and help people with my experience and contacts. Let’s see what else there is for me,” said Klopp, who added he had “already coached the best clubs in the world.”

Klopp played 325 games for Mainz before stepping up to the role of coach in 2001.

He moved to Dortmund in 2008, winning two league titles and taking the club to the 2013 Champions League final before signing with Liverpool in 2015.

At Liverpool, Klopp ended the Reds’ 30-year wait for the Premier League title. He also took the club to three Champions League finals, winning one, delivered an FA Cup, two League Cups and a UEFA Supercup.

The coach joked that anyone linking him with a return to coaching had not been paying attention.

“At the moment there’s nothing job-wise. No club, no country. A few people must not have heard that part.”

England manager Gareth Southgate has led his country to a third semi-final in four major tournaments but ahead of  today’s last-four showdown against the Netherlands at Euro 2024, critics of the Three Lions’ boring football are mounting.

Should England end a 58-year wait to win a major trophy in Berlin on Sunday, supporters would not take umbrage with the team’s style, or lack thereof, but the inability of such an array of attacking stars to excite has stunned viewers across the continent.

Southgate’s team produced just five shots on target in 240 minutes of action against Switzerland and Slovakia in the prior two rounds, needing penalties and extra-time respectively to progress.

Former England striker Alan Shearer called the team “rotten” after staggering past Slovakia, while French Euro 2000 winner Emmanuel Petit echoed many fans and national media by labelling England “boring”.

Told his team was “not easy on the eye” by a German reporter, Southgate produced an assortment of reasons.

 “I’m sorry for that, but our intention is always to play well with the ball – in football you have an opponent that’s trying to stop you,” he said after the win over Switzerland.

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 “These are not normal football matches, these are national events with huge pressure, with really young men in the middle of it.

 “Our team has been under enormous pressure from the start. They are doing so well.”

Southgate pointed to England’s opponents using defensive formations and also blamed the grass in Germany for hampering his players.

“We’re not able to score a load of goals at the moment, but we’ve played three teams that play a back five, well-organised defences,” he continued.

“Pitches are a little bit bobbly so sometimes you need the extra touch and then the space is gone. None of this is easy, but we’re in a third semi-final in four tournaments.”

After reaching the 2018 World Cup semi-finals and being beaten in the Euro 2020 final on penalties by Italy, England began this tournament as one of the two favourites along with France.

Les Bleus have also played in a rather tedious, yet adequate, fashion to reach the other semi-final.

Southgate noted even La Roja, who by contrast have dazzled this summer in Germany, modified their style to be more direct as they beat the hosts in the quarter-finals.

 “It’s not just about playing well – Spain mixed their game up, they took seven yellow cards, they found ways to win,” said the coach.

They now face a Dutch team whose five games have produced nearly double the number of goals as in England’s, despite playing 60 minutes less.

In Liverpool’s Cody Gakpo and Burnley target man Wout Weghorst, Ronald Koeman’s side have a variety of different tools to create havoc at the other end, leading to hope of a more entertaining, higher-calibre clash.

One bone of contention England fans have had with Southgate is his reluctance to make changes.

Cole Palmer, arguably the player of the season in England, has not started a game in Germany, while Ollie Watkins would offer the ability to run in behind that Kane can no longer muster. Anthony Gordon, who would add dynamism on the left, has gone virtually ignored.

Despite some decisive moments Jude Bellingham has looked jaded after his exploits with Real Madrid and Phil Foden is operating at a far lower level than with Manchester City.

Southgate only rang the changes against Switzerland after falling behind, before Bukayo Saka’s fine strike from distance pulled England level.

There are concerns that like in the World Cup 2018 semi-final against Croatia, if Southgate is too reactive rather than proactive, England could lose control of the game against better opposition.

If they can defeat the Netherlands with a convincing display instead of another isolated moment of brilliance, it will give the team hope ahead of a potential final.

Fans tossed beer cups at Southgate during a dull goalless draw with Slovenia but all will be forgiven if England triumph in Berlin on July 14.

“I don’t think it is normal to have Beer thrown at you,” said Southgate. “But we will keep grinding, keep fighting and keep enjoying this journey.”