Phil Foden approached Gareth Southgate after his early substitution on England duty to set the record straight.
The Manchester City forward began their 2-1 win in Italy on the bench and watched as his teammates scored two goals in the first half to set up a famous victory. The hosts recovered in the second half and had pulled a goal back when Southgate decided that he wanted Foden to come on and replace club teammate Jack Grealish in the 69th minute.
However, the 22-year-old had barely been on the pitch for 10 minutes when defender Luke Shaw was shown a second yellow card, hamstringing England as they tried to hold onto their victory. Southgate decided that Foden would be the one to come off as he brought on Newcastle's Kieran Trippier to see out the game.
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A 12-minute appearance is not what Foden would have been expecting from the game, and a substitute being taken off - especially after such a short period - had the potential to be problematic. But coach Southgate said that Foden had sought him out to let him know that he accepted the decision.
"He came up to me and said, ‘I know, I get it’ - he knew exactly what we needed to do.," said Southgate. “You obviously don't want to do that but we needed to get the full-back on and we felt the change of the shape with them having to play around us but with enough bodies to deal with crosses but with wing-backs to stop those crosses was the right way to get around that.”
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