The Sunday Times November 14, 2021 11Phillips asked for
Verratti’s shirt after
the Euro final. ‘He’s
very physical and gets
stuck in, which I like’
Some of the biggest nations have
already qualified for next year’s
World Cup finals, while others are
hoping to avoid the play-offsAlready qualified
Brazil have stormed through the
South America group, qualifying
with six matches still to playDenmark conceded their first goal in
qualifying last week, but the Euro
2020 semi-finalists still romped to
their ninth win from nine gamesGermany seem to have put behind
them the disasters of the 2018 World
Cup and Euro 2020 by cruising
through their groupQatar have qualified as host nationNearly there
England need only a point away to
San Marino tomorrowArgentina are well behind Brazil but
they are far enough ahead of the rest
to have no worriesStill sweating
Portugal face Serbia today and need
to avoid defeat to qualify. They, of
course, have Cristiano Ronaldo, but
Serbia can boast the most lethal
striker at present in English football,
Fulham’s Aleksandar MitrovicSpain are also in a winner-takes-all
battle tonight as they host Sweden.
A win or draw will be enough for Luis
Enrique’s sideItaly may have won Euro 2020, but
they have not had it all their own way
in group C. Roberto Mancini’s team,
who visit Northern Ireland tomorrow,
need to equal or better whatever
Switzerland do against BulgariaCroatia were finalists at the 2018
World Cup but have to win at home
against the group H leaders Russia
today to qualify automaticallyTHE FIGHT FOR
QUALIFICATION
formidable when they click, Spain
continue to develop and Germany are
resurgent, while Brazil have breezed
through qualification, but this is not
an era of great international sides.
England will rightly be among the four
or five favourites for 2022.Sheer talent
Albania were handed their biggest
defeat in 14 years by a side without
Rice, Mason Mount, Marcus Rashford,
Luke Shaw, Bukayo Saka, Bellingham,
Jack Grealish, Emile Smith Rowe,
Trent Alexander-Arnold, Jadon
Sancho or Mason Greenwood in the
starting line-up. The options at
Southgate’s disposal are remarkable
and such strength in depth will give
England an advantage at a World Cup
where, because of the effects of a
packed schedule on players, squad
power will be even more important.Set pieces
England have scored from dead-ball
situations in all but one of their six
games since Euro 2020 and it seems
the set-piece prowess that was so
important to their run at the 2018
World Cup is back. The deliveries
James and Foden provide are
outstanding and Maguire, who headed
in a free kick for England’s first against
Albania, revealed that Southgate has
been working on set plays.The time of year
England have lost only one
competitive match in November in
the past 14 years and their best
performances have often come in the
middle of the club season, when
players are flying and not yet fatigued.
“Normally we go into tournaments
picking up the pieces at the end of a
season, but this will be during the
season. The unknown is what will
happen with the tight turnaround,”
Southgate said, referring to the small
gap between the last Premier League
games on November 13 and the start
of the World Cup eight days later.Squad harmony
England have a great balance between
competition for places and mutual
supportiveness between players. This
is an essential ingredient in national
squads that win tournaments.Interestingly, Southgate said he was
“not convinced” England’s squad was
any better than in 1996, 1998, 2004 or
2006, “but this group have really
blended well. They have formed a
very strong bond and the way they
have worked for each other has
produced some exceptional results.”Southgate himself
Set to extend his contract until 2024
after San Marino are despatched, he is
the most popular manager among the
players since Terry Venables and has
taken the team further than anyone
since Sir Alf Ramsey. Paulo Sousa, the
Poland coach, is one of several
opponents who believes Southgate to
be underrated in his own country....AND FIVE REASONS WHY
THEY MAY NOT
Workload
Have you seen the 2022-23 schedule?
Sixteen rounds of Premier League
matches and a full Champions League
group stage to be fitted in before the
World Cup? Yikes.The supercoaches
Roberto Mancini’s tactical mastery in
the Euro 2020 final was sobering. The
international scene is not full of
managers with great club track
records but Southgate may need to
step up a little in areas such as
substitutions and in-game positional
tweaks if he has to face one.Reliance on Kane
The captain still looks to be the one
England player for whom there is
no comparable replacement.
Greenwood has been touted for a
central striking role but it seems
unlikely that he will be a fully fledged
international player by next year.Luck of the draw
In their past two tournaments,
England have had pathways to semi-
finals more benign than the yellow
brick road — surely they cannot be so
lucky with the draw again.Penalties
Come on... the curse has not really
been broken, has it?can rat about. He’s very physical and
gets into the game really quick and
gets stuck in, which I like.”
Phillips asked for Verratti’s shirt at
the end of the final but Verratti
declined (“no hard feelings”). He was
one of the few England players who
lingered on the pitch, watching Italy
celebrate. “There was me, Ben
White, a few other lads. I just wanted
to see what it was like to win a major
trophy. I wanted to see their
reactions and their fans’ reactions as
well.” Those images are stored in the
memory bank for inspiration.
Phillips has his runners-up medal
displayed in his kitchen. He has just
hired a chef to help him meet Bielsa’s
strict requirements (Leeds players
are weighed every morning before
training). Asked for an anecdote to
sum up his manager’s quirks, Phillips
grinned.
“There are a few, to be fair,” he
said. “He used to walk to the training
ground from his old house in
Wetherby. It’s probably a half-hour
walk on a big, long country road. He
has a friend over from Chile called
Cachu and he likes to know how farSilva, Ilkay Gundogan, Kevin De
Bruyne and even the increasingly
versatile Rodri) that Southgate
possesses and potentially could
coach into a dominant unit.
No two players are ever the same,
and Pirlo noted that Phillips controls
play in a manner “a bit different” to
him. The stats illustrate it: in the
2020-21 Premier League, Phillips was
in the 77th percentile of all players for
progressive passing distance, the
95th for long passes completed and
79th for key passes made but he was
also exceptionally high for touches in
his defensive third, for pressures in
the middle and defensive third and
ball recoveries/interceptions. This
shows how he dominates as much
through defending as creating. His
energy is such that he was second to
only Jorginho among all players at
Euro 2020 for distance covered.
Phillips is modest when describing
his partnership with Rice. “I love
playing with Declan,” he says. “We’re
two very similar players but work in
different ways when we play
together. Declan is almost a protector
in front of the back four and I’malmost a dog that goes running after
people that have the ball.”
Could it be that Southgate needs to
take advantage of the subtler parts of
Phillips’s game? Marco Verratti is the
Italian with whom Phillips most
identifies. “I’ve always loved him,” he
says. “I like getting stuck in. When I
watch him... the way he controls the
game and if he needs to rat about, hehe’s walking. And he’s not one for
technology, so he had Cachu follow
behind him with one of those things
that clicks every time you walk one
metre [an old-fashioned measuring
wheel], counting how many metres it
was from his house to training.
“Even now, he walks around the
training ground. We had a 1,000-
metre running track installed a few
years ago. He does five or ten laps
every day around it.”
Phillips is sanguine about Leeds’s
season to date, in which results have
been mixed. Trust in Bielsa, he said.
Speaking of eccentrics, as Phillips
talked, in the fustal hall at St George’s
Park, he had to raise his voice to be
heard over an almighty screech.
Wheelchair footballers were
training in a portioned-off part of the
hall but suddenly a chair came
hurtling round the corner, electric
engine screaming. The grinning
driver: Aaron Ramsdale.ON TV TOMORROW
San Marino v England
Kick off: 7.45pm, ITVWORLD CUP QUALIFYING
GROUP I
PW D L F AGD Pts
England 97 2 029326 23
Poland 96 2 129920 20
Albania 9 5 0 4 11 12 -1 15
Hungary 9 4 2 3 17 12 5 14
Andorra 9 2 0 7 8 23 -15 6
San Marino 9 0 0 9 1 36 -35 0TOMORROW’S FIXTURES
All 7.45pm Albania v Andorra; Poland v
Hungary; San Marino v England.There is still a lot of football to
be played before the World Cup
starts in just over 12 months’ timeInternational breaks
Mar 26, 2022; Sep 24, 20222022 World Cup finals draw
Apr 1, 2022, Doha2022-23 Nations League dates
Group stage draw, Dec 16, 2021;
group matches, Jun 2–8, 2022
(two games); Jun 8-14 (two
games); Sep 22–27 (two games)2022-23 Premier League season
Start Aug 6, 2022; break for World
Cup Nov 14; resumes Dec 262022 World Cup finals
Opening match Nov 21;
final Dec 18COUNTDOWN TO
QATAR 2022
Albania with one of his best England
displays and Kalvin Phillips excelled
as a single pivot. With Declan Rice
and Bellingham developing fast,
Southgate suddenly has so much
more scope in the middle.Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling
Harry Kane is now level with Jimmy
Greaves on 44 England goals and an
interesting thing about Raheem
Sterling is that all 18 of his
international strikes have come when
it mattered — in competitive games.
They link brilliantly and their team-
mates know their games. Other
nations have excellent forwards too,
but part of England’s consistency
under Southgate stems from having
such a reliable attacking tandem.The opposition
Italy deservedly won Euro 2020 but
have tasted victory in only two games
out of six since the tournament, and
their failure to beat Switzerland on
Friday, which would have all but
ensured their World Cup qualification,
hints at a decline. France remain‘I thought he
was going
to say
something
about Italy,
but, no, he
wished me
well. Full
respect to
him for that’
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLANDMaguire
opened the
scoring on
Friday for an
England team
in impressive
form and shape