Kalvin Phillips needs little encouragement to look back on the heady, giddily celebratory summer evening that transpired last time England faced Germany. They were riding a wave at Euro 2020 and so was he: it was only the midfielder’s 10th cap and, after a tentative start, he produced the kind of insistent, driving performance that had become integral to the national team so quickly.
“It was an unbelievable day,” he says of the 2-0 win at Wembley. “I’ve still got memories of it, and the reaction after as well. It was one of the best games I’ve been involved in; hopefully we can have the same game in the next few days and get another good result.”
That is not beyond England, even if appearances in Budapest on Saturday suggested otherwise. Phillips, 26, had little time to set into Hungary as a late substitute but is expected to play from the beginning against Hansi Flick’s side. While he roared into the European Championship, this time it feels like more of a standing start.
Last year Phillips arrived off the back of an outstanding personal and collective season with a Leeds side that won hearts under Marcelo Bielsa; the backdrop to this summer’s Nations League challenges has been a relegation battle that was navigated by a hair’s breadth and a campaign in which he missed 16 games with hamstring trouble.
“Obviously last season we were playing really well as a team and [this time] we had some difficult periods with results,” he says. “I think I read a stat the other day that said Leeds had the most players missing with injury through the season. But right at the end it was all worth it, we stayed up and that was a great feeling as well.”
The chances are he will channel it for good. If the shoot-out defeat to Italy is not counted, the Hungary defeat was his first as an England player. Given he spent 11 minutes on the pitch it was tough to lose that unbeaten record, which had lasted 19 appearances. Phillips has become crucial to Gareth Southgate’s plans and it was easy to see why at the Puskas Arena. England struggled in midfield for most of the evening; Jude Bellingham, who would be better utilised in a three than a two, appeared lost at times and the dynamic influence Phillips can wield alongside Declan Rice was glaringly conspicuous by its absence.
A competent, but hardly stellar, Hungary side hammered home the point that England are not good enough to suppose they can stutter through games while a few notches below their best. “I think the performance kind of opens our eyes,” Phillips says. “We know it’s not going to be a breeze when we go to the World Cup, or the next few games. We know we’re going to come up against difficult teams, who are going to defend well against us.
“I think Germany are the total opposite. They’re going to attack us, try to get in behind us and create a lot of chances. As long as we defend well I don’t think we’ve got a problem.”
It was an analysis that slightly underplayed a smart, proactive outing from the Hungarians. Nobody could seriously contend England had their backline at full stretch. But England must tread a line between playing the occasion along with their opponents on Tuesday; a full house at the Allianz Arena in Munich will have an intense edge of its own, because this fixture rarely has anything else.
The stakes will feel higher. On the pitch Germany are in reasonable shape after draws in Italy and, back in March, the Netherlands. Before then they had won eight consecutive games, albeit against more modest opposition; a page has been turned on the desolate way in which Joachim Löw’s reign ended at Wembley.
For Phillips, any old scores come second to seeing off the rejuvenated foe in front of them. “We’d love to go there, win the game and not have to worry about us needing to beat them because of the history and stuff like that,” he says. “But any time we come up against Germany, it’s going to be a big game.”
Phillips has shown he can handle those. He does not completely reject the idea England’s players feel tired at the end of such an enervating domestic season – “You could say so but I don’t want to use that as an excuse” – but there will be no explaining away a failure to arrive in Qatar correctly prepared.
“We want to go on a winning streak before the World Cup,” he says. England have their best chance of doing that if Phillips and Rice are in tandem to cover every blade of grass, offering the defensive conscience required in tight encounters. Recapturing the feeling of 12 months ago would, for player and team, be very timely indeed.
