England manager Gareth Southgate has called for his players to forget their 2-1 semi-final defeat to Croatia in the World Cup and focus on tomorrow’s match at Wembley. England took the lead against Croatia in the semi-final but goals from Ivan Perisic and Mario Mandzukic eliminated them from the tournament.
130 days later, England play Croatia in a make or break Nations League match at Wembley. Both England and Croatia are with 4 points in their group. If England win tomorrow, then they will qualify for the Nations League Finals. However, if they lose, they will face relegation to League B of the 2020-21 Nations League.
Speaking ahead of tomorrrow’s clash, Southgate said, “It’s dead simple, really. We win, we go to a semi-final and that’s all we will focus on and everything else. We just go for it. There’s no point in hedging our bets that we might do this, we might do that, or we need a 0-0. We want to send our fans away with a performance that excites them, and we have got a chance to get through what’s been a really strong group, so for me, we just focus on going for the win. I think for me it is about our team and now.
We didn’t get over the line in the summer, and we want to try to prove that we have learned from that, and have improved from the summer, and we play a team which we hugely respect with real competitors and warriors.”
England have played Croatia at Wembley thrice, winning, losing and drawing once. In England’s away leg against Croatia at Rijeka, they were the superior team but the match finished in a 0-0 draw.
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