England’s World Cup progress was halted by Croatia but they still have one final game to play before they leave Russia. England will be up against Belgium at Saint Petersburg on Saturday to determine who will bag the bronze medal in the tournament. England coach Gareth Southgate has said that he will be making changes for the third place playoff against Belgium. Goalkeeper Jordan Pickford wants to feature in the match to win the Golden Glove and find a place in the Team of the Tournament.
Jordan Pickford has had an impressive tournament for England and has made several terrific saves throughout the tournament including making a crucial penalty save in the shootout against Colombia.
The Evertonian said, “Hopefully I will get the nod against Belgium. I’d love to be the goalkeeper of the tournament. We came to win this tournament and we can’t do that now but we want to finish third. It will be a tough test against Belgium — again. It will be hard to get ourselves up for it. That’s where character comes in. It’s a chance to show our togetherness. We want to finish a great tournament on a high.”
“We can’t finish the best team in the world but we can still be third best. Against Croatia, we really needed that second goal before half-time or just after, to give ourselves a cushion. We had chances but Croatia kept getting better. We wanted to win the World Cup for ourselves but also for our families, the fans and the country. My overriding thought is we did ourselves proud. The country believes in us again. I don’t think they were expecting too much.”
England and Belgium previously faced in the group stages of the tournament with the latter team prevailing thanks to a goal from Adnan Januzaj. However, in that game, neither side fielded their best team. With both teams having already qualified, they wanted to give their key players a rest before the knockout stages.
