England v Brazil: I want fearless players in my team, says Southgate

Pragmatism has made way for experimentation as the Three Lions prepare for Russia next summer, with five-time champions Brazil lying in wait after Friday’s encouraging goalless draw with holders Germany.

Eric Dier will again captain an injury-hit England side that utilises a three-man defence and the youth at its disposal, with a trio of uncapped players pushing for their debut after five made their international bow on Friday.

Jordan Pickford, Joe Gomez and man-of-the-match Ruben Loftus-Cheek impressed on a night when the youngsters showed more in one match “than you might see in many more games from other players”.

Southgate says their emergence is creating “opportunities” rather than selection headaches and the England manager will not shy away from backing youth next summer.

“I will go with what I think is the best squad,” Southgate said. “At the moment I believe the best would include a lot of those young players.

“It’s easy to be swayed at times by needing experience, but you can have 100 experiences of the same thing or 10 different experiences that make you a more rounded person.

“What is the experience and what value it brings is a very individual thing.

“These young players have also had experience of winning youth tournaments, playing high level matches and challenges to get to where they are in their path.

“So they’ve had to show some resilience of their own. We’d love to have a team full of players who have won the Champions League but we haven’t got that.

“But I want players who will be fearless, prepared to have the ball and show what they are capable of on the biggest stage.”

That fearlessness will be matched by their manager. Backing youth is a riskier approach than focusing on short-term results, but that and fulfilling personal ambitions is not Southgate’s overriding goal.

It is instead about “something bigger” – and that might mean his successors benefiting.

“I think I was given the job because I understand the pathway and to join the whole thing up,” the former England’s Under-21s boss, and head of elite development at the Football Association, said.

“But I can’t control if we have moments of pressure, how other people respond.

“If you’re a manager and you worry about that it inhibits your decisions.

“You can become risk averse, and there’s a danger if you’re risk averse you can forget about trying to win, and try not to lose.”

England’s immediate challenge is hosting a “juggernaut” of the world game at Wembley.

Playing Brazil offers the chance to get a “really good idea of what we’re good at” and for young players to increase pressure on more established players ahead of the World Cup

“(Philippe) Coutinho hasn’t played for a few weeks for Liverpool, but he is there for Brazil,” said Southgate, who has seen eight players withdraw from his initial squad.

“I imagine part of that is because he is thinking, ‘if I’m not there and I’m not playing and someone else goes in do I get the shirt back?’

“Maybe we haven’t had that, but I think moving forward we will have and I think that will affect people’s approach definitely.”

That approach extends to focusing on the England shirt rather than acquiring another, no matter how much of a special keepsake the jersey of Neymar or his Brazilian team-mates may be.

“I’ve got a wardrobe full of shirts at home and I think they’re all full-backs because it wasn’t high on my list of priorities to go and swap,” Southgate said, smiling.

“By the way, there are a load of full-backs saying, ‘I’ve got f***ing Gareth Southgate’s shirt’, so I accept that works both ways.

“I used to talk to young players about this at Middlesbrough.

“I remember young David Wheater, I pulled him over the coals because he bowled off with Thierry Henry’s shirt after a game.

“I said, ‘right, Okay, where do you think that leaves you when you play him again next time? Because you were waiting to get his shirt and it’s given him a sense of ‘oh okay, you’re just a young one’.

“You are either going toe-to-toe with these guys or we are just here for the tour.”