by Having avoided some of the top-ranked nations lurking in the final, Gareth Southgate also avoided the play-off teams and can start planning for the Euros immediately. He wants his squad to be based in a remote town called Blankenhain at a resort with two golf courses.
The draw at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall was a good afternoon for Southgate. Serbia, Denmark and Slovenia have been drawn in Group C and the planning will begin immediately. There will be no waiting around for March to decide the last of the qualifiers.
Southgate’s preferred training camp for the tournament is Blankenhain, a quiet town 90 minutes from Leipzig with a population of less than 7,000 people. Golfresort Weimarer Land, a hotel with 45 holes of golf, has been checked by Football Association officials ahead of the draw, with final details yet to be confirmed.
England stayed away from the city center during tournaments. They were in the forests of Repino outside St Petersburg for the 2018 World Cup, then four years later they were at Al Wakrah south of Doha on the beach.
“The plans will be confirmed in the next few weeks. Obviously you have a lot to do but it means we can start to really focus,” Southgate said.
“From our perspective it’s nice to be able to plan properly now. You are not waiting for one of the playoffs and you have your three opponents. We know where our games will be in terms of where we want to be based and in terms of dates we can now look at when we want to leave England and it really drives our next stage of planning.”
Blankenhain would be in line with Southgate being relatively isolated between games to focus on training. The town is close to Erfurt, which has an airport. With two 18-hole golf courses and another nine-hole course the players will be expected to do well.
Southgate has confirmed there will not be a repeat of the 2006 World Cup in Germany when the squad were based at the Black Forest spa center in Baden-Baden and it became a bit of a circus with the players’ wives, girlfriends and family members in the middle of the fair. But tournaments are becoming routine for Southgate and his team in terms of their training environment, and also the prospect of winning.
The big difference between this Euro and the last is Jude Bellingham. Last time he was a squad player, this time he is a match-winning Galactico for Real Madrid and the name was on the lips of other managers. Southgate’s Harry Kane is adjusting to life in Germany ahead of the tournament with his free-scoring form at Bayern Munich.
Do they lift England to potential winners? “Well, players do, Argentina is number one in the world, France is number two in the world, good players make better coaches, they make good teams, of course we all want to play our part but in the end is the game. about players and you need good ones if you’re going to win football games,” Southgate said.
“Harry is a great player, the games are a bit different at Bayern at the moment, they are dominating the games so much he is playing a lot higher so it is interesting to see that, but, yes, no one needs to tell us that Harry Kane is in our team, he is a very special player, again, he has won us so many games, not only with his goals, which is an obvious factor, but his play, his passing ability, the way he leads the line. , we are lucky to have him.”
The draw also brought back memories for Southgate. Slovenia were the second opponents when he was caretaker manager of England and Joe Hart needed a brilliant save to secure a final. “But if Joe Hart managed to pull off one of the best saves I’ve ever seen, I wouldn’t be standing here and I’d probably still be concerned about something else,” he said.
Southgate’s side will open their tournament against Serbia in Gelsenkirchen and have only played at the AufSchalke Arena there once before, losing to Portugal on penalties in 2006 when Wayne Rooney was sent off. Their second match of Group C will again be against Denmark in the semi-final in 2021.
“When Denmark first came out you think ‘ok, interesting’. Of course everyone was thinking about Italy in the lower pots and Croatia. But I have to say that Serbia are a very dangerous opponent,” Southgate added. “You look at Serbia with a center forward like Aleksandar Mitrović and you have to be very careful when you take things with these draws.”
While Southgate was looking at a favorable draw, Scotland were facing a tougher one. Steve Clarke’s side will open the tournament against hosts Germany in Munich, while they also face Portugal and Hungary.
Clarke told the BBC: “It’s nice to open the tournament and it’s nice to be involved in that first game and hopefully we can settle the tournament with a good game.
“We have to make sure it’s not about the occasion and it’s about the game. We’re looking forward to it, it’s an exciting attraction.
“I don’t think it mattered who we were going to get, it was always going to be exciting for us. (It’s) nice to be involved in the drawing process and (we’re) really looking forward to next summer now.
