It doesn’t usually end well for England when they reach the semi-finals of a major tournament. Since a 2-1 win over Portugal in the 1966 World Cup the Three Lions have been beaten twice by Germany on penalties (Italia 90 and Euro 96) and 2-1 by Croatia in the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
If football is going to come home then the next step of the journey is to end the semi-final hoodoo against Denmark at Wembley on Wednesday. For England head coach Gareth Southgate he says the squad have a “fabulous opportunity”.
“It’s a chance to make history as we’ve never been to a European Championship final,” he said. “It’s not so much pressure for this team; it’s another challenge that they’ve got the chance to take on, and at the moment they’re rising to those challenges.”
When asked about the semi-final history, he added: “We’ve knocked off so many hoodoos or perceived barriers already and I feel like this group of players will feel this is just the next challenge. I guess the interesting part for us is we won’t feel totally satisfied if it’s just a semi-final for us, whereas maybe three years ago, although there was massive disappointment after the semi-final, there was a feeling we’d come a long way.”
England captain Harry Kane, who has now scored three times at Euro 2020, says “we need to try to focus on ourselves; it is a semi-final at our national stadium and we’ve got to use all those positives to worry about us”. The striker added: “We know if we get it right and play how we know we can then we have a great opportunity to get to a final. It’s going to be incredible.” This is a team “who sense this is their moment”, says Uefa.com reporter Simon Hart. “And with 60,000 fans inside Wembley roaring them on, why not make some more history?”
