Southgate: ’66 World Cup video inspired England

Gareth Southgate believes a video shown to the England squad of their 1966 World Cup-winning campaign helped inspire Sunday’s 2-1 round-of-16 win over Slovakia.

The Three Lions recovered from Ivan Schranz‘s 25th-minute opening goal in dramatic fashion as Jude Bellingham‘s stunning overhead kick in the 95th minute forced extra time. Harry Kane then nodded in the winner barely 60 seconds into the additional 30-minute period to set up a quarter-final showdown with Switzerland in Dusseldorf on Saturday.

After the game, in which Southgate used five substitutions, he referenced a video shown to the players at St George’s Park prior to the tournament, which explained the importance of every member of the squad that won England’s only major honour.

“We showed the players a presentation about 1966 and how Geoff Hurst [who scored a hat trick in the final as England beat West Germany 4-2] hadn’t played until the quarterfinals and the difficult route the team had,” said Southgate. “All along, the players who have come into the games have had a big impact. They’ve been ready, they’ve trained well and all of the guys who came on played important roles either in creating the goals, steadying the ship. [Eberechi] Eze defending at the far post as a left wing-back for a period of it. Ezri Konsa getting out to stop crosses coming into the box at the end.

“Conor Gallagher hurling himself around to stop the ball coming into our area. That’s the spirit they have and it is that that’s got us over the line today.

“We just wanted to highlight that tournaments take you in strange places, difficult routes. The team wasn’t always flying. The team I’m sure would have been criticised at the start so it was just a bit of perspective really.

“We wanted to highlight the value of the squad, the fact that some of the players who you think are going to be in like a Jimmy Greaves end up playing a different role. The support of player like Jimmy Armfield.

“It is one of the things we’ve done just to recognise the value of the group. We’re always referring to these moments because that’s what part of creating a tournament-winning team. We’ve got a long way to go.”