Harvey Elliott has picked out Jude Bellingham, Bukayo Saka and Phil Foden as the three stars England must build their team around for the 2026 World Cup.
The Three Lions crashed out of this year's tournament to France in the quarter-finals. But Gareth Southgate 's men can take heart from their performances in Qatar, having pushing reigning champions Les Bleus all the way in their last eight clash on Saturday.
Attention will now turn to the next tournaments, first at Euro 2024 in Germany and then the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada. England are likely to be among the favourites to win both trophies, given their young and upcoming squad.
Liverpool star Elliott is certainly hopeful for the future, as he eyes a call-up to the national team. The 19-year-old is widely seen as having a bright future at international level and has been tipped to be a key player in 2026.
But the midfielder has insisted he is keeping his head down as he awaits his first senior cap. Instead, he picked out Bellingham, Foden and Saka as the three players who will be key for the Three Lions.
"I think it's just motivation to be honest. The England in itself now is full of unbelievable talent and unbelievable players," Elliott told Sky Sports when asked about his international hopes.
"So for myself, whatever England team goes out and plays, watching it or being involved, I feel 100 per cent confident in that they're going to go out and give it their best. As I said, we have unbelievable talent all around the world.
"The manager now, it's nice to see such young players being able to get the opportunity, like Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden, Saka. All these players are going to be here for so many more years.
"It's always nice and as I said, for myself it's just motivation to make sure that hopefully I can be in that team. It's just all about working hard, it's a tough team and to be able to get into it is a dream of mine.
"But there's a lot of work that I need to be putting in to make sure I even get around the team, let alone inside it. It's just down to me to make sure I put in the effort and the work and hopefully one day I can get there."
Bellingham, Foden and Saka all started the game against France, with the latter winning a second-half penalty. While England were left disappointed at crashing out, Southgate insisted he was proud of his team.
“Well, I think the performance did [deserve better]. Goals are decisive but I just said to the players in there I don’t think they could give any more," the England boss said.
“I think they played really well against a top team and it’s fine margins, things at both ends that have ended up deciding the game, but I think the way they’ve progressed throughout this tournament has been fantastic.
“We were here to try to win the tournament, and we had belief we could. I think we showed with the performance tonight against the reigning champions that we’ve got a team that could’ve done that.”
