England manager Gareth Southgate wants his team to be bold and attack France in Saturday’s huge World Cup quarter-final clash, and hopes the occasion will “bring millions together”.
Southgate led England to the semi-finals of the World Cup in 2018 and the final of Euro 2020 last summer and hopes the experience of “high pressure nights” will help his team as they take on the defending champions France in their biggest test of the tournament so far.
England are facing Les Bleus in the knockout stages of a major tournament for the first time and must figure out how to stop France’s star forward Kylian Mbappe, who is the top scorer at the World Cup in Qatar with five goals.
France will also carry threat from attackers Olivier Giroud, Antoine Griezmann and Ousmane Demeble but Southgate wants England to focus on their own strengths and deliver a performance for the nation to be “proud of”.
Southgate told ITV: “‘There is no point going into a game like this and just covering up and sitting on the ropes. We believe we can cause problems with the ball and we intend to do that.
“We’ve beaten some big teams. We know we have the experience of high pressure nights behind us and as a team we’ve been resilient through a lot of situations but they all prepare you for nights like this.
“We got to the first final for 55 years [at the Euros], this is a quarter-final. We’ve won a semi-final and been to a semi-final of the World Cup before but, of course, it is a big game against a high quality opponent. Everything that has happened in the past is history, it all comes down to Saturday night.
“What they have been through and what they’ve learnt and the way we have gone about things in this tournament, they’ve understood what we have been trying to do they’ve kept calm and shown belief in what they’ve been asked to do and shown a great mentality about the way they’ve played.
“These nights are always nights that bring millions of people together. They will remember where they were and we want to give them another night to be proud of.”
While Mbappe carries France’s biggest threat, Southgate was keen to emphasise that England must not forget about their opponent’s other star players. France are aiming to become the first team in 60 years to defend the World Cup under Didier Deschamps.
When asked about how England are planning to stop Mbappe, Southgate said: “Well similar to the fact there will be a particular plan for [Olivier] Giroud, and for [Antoine] Griezmann and for [Ousmane] Dembele.
“They’ve got a lot of very good players. We will always prepare any team we play against for certain individuals, that the detail of marking them and dealing with them is important.
“We’ve got to stick on the path we’ve been heading. We’ve done a lot of things very well. There are things we are going to have to do better to get a result against France. The basis of our game is good with and without the ball we need to make sure that the detail is as close to perfect.
“We are never gonna get perfection but we have to get as close to that as we can.”
