England will face arch-rivals Germany in the Nations League encounter at Wembley on Tuesday. Gareth Southgate believes consistency when it comes to beating the bigger teams will only help them in the lead up to the World Cup later this year.
Nations League: Germany, Brazil benchmark for England, say Southgate (Reuters Photo)
HIGHLIGHTS
- England will face Germany in the Nations League tie on Tuesday
- Southgate demands consistency from England ahead of the World Cup
- England defeated Germany in the prequarters at Euro 2020
Germany may be one of the oldest and biggest rivals for England’s football team but manager Gareth Southgate said his men need to achieve the standards that the former world champions have set at the highest level. Southgate’s comments came ahead of England’s much-anticipated Nations League tie against Germany at the Wembley on Tuesday.
England defeated Germany at a major tournament for the first time since 1966 when they sealed a 2-0 win the pre-quarterfinals at Euro 2020. Under Southgate, England reached the 2018 World Cup semi-final and the final of Euro last year wherein they lost to Italy on penalties.
However, Southgate believes England need to consistently do well against the big teams if they are to do well at this year’s FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
“For me, Germany and Brazil are still the benchmark in terms of countries who have regularly, consistently won tournaments,” Southgate said.
“People will talk about England’s 5-1 win (over Germany in 2001) but they ended up in the World Cup final on the back of that qualifying campaign.
“You have to respect what they’ve done and what they are as a country. That mentality is what we’re trying to create. We’re trying to get to the latter stages of competitions and games like tomorrow are brilliant. It’s exactly the test we need.”
SOUTHGATE DEMANDS CONSISTENCY
England lost 1-0 in their first defeat against Hungary in 60 years in their Nations League opener last week. Southgate will be hoping England can bounce back but the focus is on the bigger picture for the former international. After the clash with Germany, England host Italy on Saturday and Hungary on June 14.
“It’s a great measure, the next game is always the hardest. It won’t define where we are in six months — just because we beat them now doesn’t mean we’ll be fine in five months. A lot will happen in that period,” Southgate said.
“However, one of our hardest challenges was that we were getting to semi-finals but it was a question of whether we can beat the bigger teams. Since that, we’ve won in Spain, we’ve beaten Belgium in Wembley and we’ve beaten Germany.
“We have been starting to get those results and we just have to continue trying to do that.”