Hammer Declan Rice reported for England international duty at St Georges Park. He met with Jesse Lingard who technically remains a West Ham loanee until the end of June. The England squad watched the Champions League final together tonight with Rice cheering on his best mate Mason Mount.
The Chelsea and Man City England players in action tonight in Portugal will join after the weekend.
Gareth Southgate and a player will give a pre-match press conference on Tuesday at which point he will confirm his squad for the tournament.
England plays Austria on Wednesday at the Riverside Stadium in a friendly followed by England v Romania on Sunday 6th June also at the Riverside stadium.
England faces their first group game of the tournament against Croatia on 13th June with a 2 pm kick-off, England v Scotland follows on 18th June with a 8pm kick-off with Declan Rice hopefully facing Tomas Soucek and Vladimir Coufal on 22nd June when the Lions take on the Czech Republic with a 8pm kick off
Interested to know how he will be feeling, once he meets up with his BFF Mason after his Champions League victory. Naturally pleased for his mate but I hope that he is able to hold his nerve and focus on his path. You also have Harry Kane who has been loyal and spent years at the spuds without such glory… Interesting.
Imagine how he’d be feeling if we had finished 4th, Chelsea would have taken the CL spot from us in that scenario!
I reckon he’ll be made up for his mate, whilst strutting around with his chest out after leading us into EL.
Dec’s time for glory will come eventually. It might even be with us.
COYI
One day Basmati will be England captain whoever he plays for. I don’t rate Kane as skipper. Doesn’t talk to the players enough. Henderson would be a better leader for this tournament. I don’t think Southgate will strip Kane of it though. If we’ve no chance of winning it got to include some of the younger players for the future.