After a low-key group stage, plenty of pundits wanted to diagnose England with terminal illnesses that would kill of their tournament.
However, in their biggest game of the Euros so far, England came up with the goods against Germany yesterday to secure their place in the quarter-finals and right now it would take a brave man to bet against England making it all the way to the final.
At the heart of England’s 2-0 win over their biggest rivals yesterday stood midfield duo Declan Rice and Kalvin Phillips. The two defensive midfielders have started every game this summer largely down to the fitness problems faced by Liverpool skipper Jordan Henderson.
Despite Phillips’ Man of the Match display against Croatia in the opening game, it seems pundits across the country came down on the Leeds United star following the disappointing draw with Scotland. Jose Mourinho took a swipe at him as did former Manchester United star Gary Neville.
However, Phillips and Rice again showed their quality yesterday to help dictate the game against Germany and propel England into the last eight. Somewhat unsurprisingly, Rice then hit back at the critics debunking any claims that the pair aren’t good enough to play at this level.
In an interview with BBC after the win he said: “With me and Kalv, people are always going to write us off.
“I read stuff where people write us off and say we aren’t good enough to be playing at this level. Well, you’ve seen today, we are.”
He did admit that the pair weren’t as potent as they’d have liked against Scotland but believed that performance is now firmly behind them: “Maybe yeah against Scotland we weren’t at our best but we parked those performances to the side and I think that’s part of being a top player.”
The duo are now preparing for a quarter-final date with Ukraine in Rome on Saturday with the whole nation now believing that football could be coming home.
