England’s head coach Gareth Southgate has stated that his team is ready to end semifinal voodoo in the ongoing Euro 2020. The Three Lions don’t have a great record in the knockout stages of a major event but they have come up with an inspirational run in the ongoing European Championship.
England had topped their Group D as they won two matches out of the three they played. Subsequently, they went on to beat arch-rivals Germany by 2-0 in the Round of 16 and then went on to thrash Ukraine by 4-0 in the quarterfinals.
England haven’t reached a major final since 1966 and they will aim to turn the tables when they face Denmark in the second semifinal in front of their home crowd at Wembley Stadium, London.
“We’ve knocked off so many hoodoos or perceived barriers already, and I feel like this group of players will feel this is just the next challenge,” Gareth Southgate said as quoted by AFP.
“I guess the interesting part for us is we won’t feel totally satisfied if it’s just a semi-final for us, whereas maybe three years ago, although there was massive disappointment after the semi-final, there was a feeling we’d come a long way. Advertisement
“Now we’ve replicated what we did there, but that won’t be enough to fulfil the group. That’s a positive sign.”
Denmark, on the other hand, has had an inspirational run after their star player Christian Eriksen collapsed in the opening match against Finland. The Danish team went on to lose the opening two matches but they made a roaring comeback to qualify for the Euro semi finals after a long gap of 29 years.
Meanwhile, England have won only one of the last six meetings against Denmark. The semifinal will be played in front of a 60,000 crowd on 8th of July at 12:30 am IST at Wembley Stadium.