World Cup: England going in with no fear, says Harry Maguire

Harry Maguire expects the nation to come to a standstill during England's World Cup opener against Tunisia this evening and insists the team are ready to deliver.
Trent Alexander-Arnold gets the better of England team-mate Harry Maguire (Picture: Alex Morton/Getty Images).Trent Alexander-Arnold gets the better of England team-mate Harry Maguire (Picture: Alex Morton/Getty Images).
Trent Alexander-Arnold gets the better of England team-mate Harry Maguire (Picture: Alex Morton/Getty Images).

After watching the first few days of action in Russia, England travelled to Volgograd yesterday ahead of making their own bow in the tournament.

Former Sheffield United and Hull City defender Maguire knows all about fan expectations having been a regular at Three Lions matches as a youngster – a habit he reprised two years ago when travelling to watch Euro 2016 with family and friends.

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The Leicester defender is now set to experience the other side of the equation and is tipped to pip Gary Cahill to a place in manager Gareth Southgate’s back three tonight.

“The country stops, especially when there’s a game on and England are playing in it,” he said.

“As a fan I’ve been to watch numerous England games as a boy –they’re passionate, everyone loves the game. As professional footballers we feel more than capable of handling that pressure.

“There are a lot of players in this squad who haven’t played in World Cups, but we’re going to go in with no fear, really hungry and really attack this tournament.

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“Now it’s time to get down to business. It’s tournament football, we’ve got to go into the group games and get three points.”

Should Maguire get the nod against the Eagles of Carthage, he would likely line up alongside Barnsley-born John Stones and fellow Sheffielder Kyle Walker in the back three.

The trio have moved in similar circles for a long time and have played with against each for many years.

“We’re all from the Yorkshire area, the Sheffield area. I played against John when I was a young boy at Sheffield United,” he recalled.

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“We grew up playing each other quite a lot and I was at Sheffield United with Kyle. He was a few years above me in the age groups, but we used to know each other and speak.

“You could see when they were young the boys had great ability, you could see they would both go far in the game.”

Maguire has also arrived on the big stage in impressive fashion, just a year after being picked up by the Foxes following Hull’s relegation from the Premier League.

“It’s been a whirlwind few years, a remarkable rise and something I’m very proud of,” he said.

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“To play for your country is the pinnacle of anyone’s football career, especially at a World Cup. But I’m in the moment; maybe in a few years you’ll look back at it and think of the memories, especially if they’re good ones.”

Another Yorkshire squad member, Doncaster-born Danny Rose, believes Southgate stamped his authority on the England squad the day he dropped Wayne Rooney in Ljubljana.

Southgate was taking charge of his country for only the second time, and on an interim basis, when he decided to axe the Three Lions’ record goalscorer for a World Cup qualifier in Slovenia in October 2016 – a move which proved he was “not to be messed with”.

Rooney had captained the team in a 2-0 Wembley win over Malta just three days earlier and expected to do so all the way through to this summer’s tournament in Russia.

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But Southgate had already started to realise the squad’s biggest star did not fit his plan for a young, hungry and athletic team.

England drew the match 0-0, with Rooney a second-half substitute, but the die was cast and he retired from international duty the following summer with 53 goals from 119 caps.

“I definitely didn’t expect the manager to drop him against Slovenia and as soon as we all saw that we knew that that gaffer was not somebody to be messed around with,” said Rose.

“He’s dropped arguably one of the best England players ever and the top goalscorer as well. It was a huge shock for all of us, especially when Wayne announced that he was retiring.”

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It set the tone for a series of hard calls Southgate has made since taking charge, with Craig Shakespeare and Sammy Lee eased off the coaching staff, Joe Hart left behind in England despite starting nine out of 10 qualifiers and former regulars like Chris Smalling and Jack Wilshere overlooked.

Southgate is among the more personable figures in English football and has encouraged a closer relationship with both fans and media, but worries about him being too nice to take the tough decisions have been emphatically put to bed.

“His first camp, he didn’t employ certain people,” said Rose. “You know he has this nice side to him, but at the same time he has a side that you don’t want to cross. It literally is buy into what he and his coaching staff believe or he won’t choose you.

“You either want to be here or you don’t. If you are here you have to get on board with everything, and I think that’s what everybody’s done.”

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Rose was part of the starting XI beaten by Iceland at Euro 2016, a seismic event that he appears to lay at the door of then manager Roy Hodgson and his coaching staff.

“Some of the preparation for the Euros I would have liked to do differently, especially for the Iceland game,” he said.

“What we were doing in training was completely different to how Iceland played in the game,” he added, seemingly holding back from saying more.

“I can say now everything we’ve done in training here is exactly what we’ve seen in the videos from Tunisia. There can be no excuses, no arguments. The gaffer has given us all the right tools to be ready for Monday.”

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Southgate succeeded after Sam Allardyce’s short reign and Rose added: “Now we have a new captain as well. I don’t know, it’s pretty surreal when you think about it. We’ve all had to move on and who better to captain the side now than Harry Kane?”