Gareth Southgate has also avoided play-off teams after avoiding some of the top-flight nations lurking in the draw, so he can start planning for the Euros now. He wants his team to be based in the remote town of Blankenhain, a resort with two golf courses.
The draw at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall was a good evening for Southgate. Serbia, Denmark and Slovenia are drawn in Group C and planning will begin immediately. You won’t have to wait until March for the final qualifiers to be determined.
Southgate’s preferred training camp for the tournament is Blankenhain, a quiet town of less than 7,000 people 90 minutes from Leipzig. Golfresort Weimarer Land, a hotel with a 45-hole golf course, was checked by Football Association officials ahead of the draw, but final details are yet to be confirmed.
England stayed away from metropolitan city centers during the tournaments. St. for the 2018 World Cup. They were in the Repino forest area outside St. Petersburg, and four years later they were on the coast of Al Wakrah, south of Doha.
“The plans will be clear over the next few weeks. Obviously there’s a lot you need to do but it means we can really start to focus,” Southgate said.
“The good thing for us is that we can now plan properly. You don’t expect one of the play-off routes and you have three opponents in front of you. “We know where we want to be and where our games will be in terms of history, we can now look at when we want to leave England and that really puts the next stage of our planning into place.”
Blankenha would be in line with Southgate remaining relatively isolated between matches to concentrate on training. The town is close to Erfurt, where the airport is located. And having another nine-hole course in addition to the two 18-hole golf courses would be expected to be positively received by players.
Southgate confirmed there would be no repeat of the 2006 World Cup in Germany, where the team was based in the Black Forest spa resort of Baden-Baden and became a media circus with players’ wives, girlfriends and family members center stage. But tournaments are now becoming routine for Southgate and his team, both in terms of the training environment and the expectation of winning.
The biggest difference between this Euro and the last one will be Jude Bellingham. The last time he was a team player, this time Galactico became Real Madrid’s match winner and became the name that was on the lips of other managers. Southgate also helped Harry Kane settle into life in Germany ahead of the tournament with his free-scoring form at Bayern Munich.
Are they leading England to potential winners? “It’s the players, Argentina are number one in the world, France are second, good players make better coaches, good teams, of course we all want to play our part but ultimately the game is about the players and if you’re going to win football games you need good ones,” Southgate said.
“Harry is a great player, games are a bit different at Bayern at the moment, they dominate games so much that he plays much higher, so it’s interesting to see that, but yeah, we don’t need anyone to tell us to do that. Harry Kane is in our team, he’s very “He is a very special player, again he won a lot of games for us, not only with his goals, which is an obvious factor, but also with his play, his passing ability, the way he manages the line, we are lucky to have him.”
The draw also sparked memories for Southgate. Slovenia were second opponents when he was England’s interim manager and needed a stunning save from Joe Hart to secure a goalless draw. “But if Joe Hart had made one of the best saves I’ve ever seen, I wouldn’t be standing here and I’d probably still be a caretaker, but on something else,” he said.
Southgate’s side will open the tournament against Serbia in Gelsenkirchen and they have only played at the Arena AufSchalke once before; They lost to Portugal on penalties in 2006 when Wayne Rooney received a red card. Their second match in Group C will be played against Denmark in the semi-finals in 2021.
“When Denmark first came out you thought ‘okay, interesting’. Of course, everyone was thinking about Italy and Croatia, who were ranked lower. But I have to say Serbia are a very dangerous opponent,” added Southgate. “You look at Serbia with a center forward like Aleksandar Mitrovi. and you should be very careful when making assumptions about these sweepstakes.
While Southgate expected a positive draw, Scotland were facing a tougher draw. Steve Clarke’s team will open the tournament against hosts Germany in Munich, but will also face Portugal and Hungary.
Clarke told the BBC: “It’s good to open the tournament, it’s good to be in that first game and hopefully we can start the tournament with a good game.
“We have to make sure it’s about the match and not about the particular situation. We’re looking forward to it, it’s an exciting draw.
“I don’t think it matters who we sign, it was always going to be exciting for us. (It’s) nice to be involved in the draw process and (we’re) looking forward to next summer.